Reception
Peter Lavezzoli, author of The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, has written of Harrison's first solo single: "'My Sweet Lord' was everything that people wanted to hear in November 1970: shimmering harmonies, lustrous acoustic guitars, a solid Ringo Starr backbeat, and an exquisite guitar solo." In an era when singles by Radha Krishna Temple and adaptations of the Christian hymns "Oh Happy Day" and "Amazing Grace" were all worldwide hits, Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone observed that the substituting of Harrison's "Hare Krishna" refrain for the trivial "Doo-lang, doo-lang, doo-lang"s of "He's So Fine" was "a sign of the times". (As John Lennon famously told a reporter around this time, "Every time I put the radio on, it's 'Oh my Lord' − I'm beginning to think there must be a God!") In his December 1970 album review for NME, Alan Smith bemoaned the apparent lack of a UK single release for "My Sweet Lord" and noted that the song "seems to owe something" to "He's So Fine". To Gerson, it was an "obvious re-write" of the Chiffons hit, and within two months a writ had been served on Harrison by US music publisher Bright Tunes.
More recently, Allmusic's Richie Unterberger explains the international popularity of Harrison's single: "'My Sweet Lord' has a quasi-religious feel, but nevertheless has enough conventional pop appeal to reach mainstream listeners who may or may not care to dig into the spiritual lyrical message." Added to this was a slide guitar riff that musical biographer Simon Leng describes as "among the best-known guitar passages in popular music". Ian Inglis highlights the combination of Harrison's "evident lack of artifice" and Spector's "excellent production", such that "My Sweet Lord" can be heard "as a prayer, a love song, an anthem, a contemporary gospel track, or a piece of perfect pop".
Due to the ensuing plagiarism suit, however, "My Sweet Lord" became somewhat stigmatised by association, to the point where no mention of the song was complete without a reference to "He's So Fine". "My Sweet Lord" was ranked 460th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, yet the accompanying text only briefly mentioned the success of the single and Harrison's "teardrop slide licks" before concentrating on the controversial lawsuit. While acknowledging the common ground between the two songs, David Fricke describes Harrison's composition as "the honest child of black American sacred song". Writing around the time of All Things Must Pass's 2001 reissue, again for Rolling Stone, Anthony DeCurtis described "My Sweet Lord" as "capturing the sweet satisfactions of faith", while to Mikal Gilmore, it is an "irresistible devotional".
At the end of 1971, "My Sweet Lord" topped the Melody Maker reader's polls for both "Single of the Year" and "World's Single of the Year". In 2010, AOL Radio listeners voted "My Sweet Lord" the best song from George Harrison's solo years, ahead of "Blow Away" and "What Is Life". Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have both named it among their personal favourites of all Harrison's songs, along with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".
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