Song of the Day for November 29 2023

1 year ago Brian

Today's song highlight is "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison, former Beatles guitarist and famed solo artist. Harrison significantly impacted the Beatles with hits like "Something" and brought Indian classical influences to the band. As a solo artist, he organized significant benefit concerts, invented a distinctive slide guitar technique, and blended religious themes in his music, notably in "My Sweet Lord". Despite his death from cancer in 2001, his musical legacy remains influential.

Today’s song is My Sweet Lord, by George Harrison. In 2001, singer, songwriter, and former Beatles guitarist, George Harrison lost his battle with cancer at the age of 58. While Harrison was often known as “The Quiet Beatle,” his contributions to the band were significant, including such enduring hits as “Something,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” His love of Indian classical music (and particularly his use of the sitar), meanwhile, transformed the band’s sound. As a solo artist, Harrison released such influential albums as All Things Must Pass and Living in the Material World, while he organized the first major benefit concert, and subsequent album, The Concert for Bangladesh. In the 80s, Harrison formed the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, alongside Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty.

Harrison wrote “My Sweet Lord” in praise of the Hindu god Krishna, while intending the lyrics as a call to abandon religious sectarianism through his blending of the Hebrew word hallelujah with chants of “Hare Krishna” and Vedic prayer. The recording features producer Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound treatment and heralded the arrival of Harrison’s slide guitar technique, which one biographer described as “musically as distinctive a signature as the mark of Zorro”. Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Gary Brooker, Bobby Whitlock and members of the group Badfinger are among the other musicians on the recording.