An email I received from thebeatles.com on Wednesday brought to my attention a new video clip of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord. What I expected to see was the audio of the song with some video montage of footage showing George – well, not exactly!
It actually turned out it’s an X-Files type comedy mini-movie. Instead of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, it stars comedians and former Saturday Night Live cast members Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer as agents with a mission to discover “something out there.” It also features appearances by Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Jeff Lynne and other personalities.
Here’s how thebeatles.com put it: An all-star cast from the worlds of music, TV, film and comedy have come together to honor George Harrison in the first-ever official music video for his iconic hit song, “My Sweet Lord.”
Directed by Lance Bangs, the video stars Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer as metaphysical special agents who are tasked by the head of a clandestine agency, played by Mark Hamill, to search for that which can’t be seen.
Also featuring Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Jeff Lynne, Jon Hamm, Natasha Legerro, Darren Criss, Rosanna Arquette, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Patton Oswalt, Reggie Watts, Tim and Eric, Taiki Waititi, and many more, click below to watch the video now.
Of course, My Sweet Lord is from Harrison’s third solo album All Things Must Pass from November 1970, the first that appeared after the breakup of The Beatles. The tune, which also became the triple-LP’s lead single on November 23, 1970, four days prior to the album’s appearance, is best known because of the copyright infringement lawsuit it triggered.
Without going into the details, I think there is no doubt My Sweet Lord sounds very similar to He’s So Fine, a tune written by Ronnie Mack that became a hit in 1963 for The Chiffons. Harrison eventually was found to have “subconsciously plagiarized” the song.
On a more cheerful note, the recent 50th anniversary edition of All Things Must Pass received a nomination for a 2022 Grammy for Boxed or Special Limited-Edition Package. It’s just amazing to me how many different Grammy categories exist. That being said, I’m happy for Dhani Harrison, Olivia Harrison and art director Darren Evans, who were involved in the anniversary edition.
Sources: Wikipedia; thebeatles.com; georgeharrison.com; YouTube
Christian's Music Musings 
That is great! I hope they do it for more of his songs. They did one in the past for What Is Life…I wish they would make a video for Isn’t It A Pity. Love the video.
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It’s a little goofy but, yes, it’s funny. I believe George had a good sense of humor and probably would have liked it!
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He did have a good sense of humor. Have you seen the video of him and Monty python playing my sweet Lord and they turn it into the pirate song? Look it up if you haven’t… I’m doing voice to text so some things are not capitalized
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Here it is….
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Thanks, that’s great! When you mentioned Monty Python, I vaguely remembered there was a connection with George.
I just refreshed my memory in Wikipedia. George was a co-founder of HandMade Films, a production and distribution company that financed Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” Have you seen that picture? Hilarious!
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He financed some of their movies
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Apparently, by mortgaging his house! Eventually, he had a fallout with his business partner and sued him – not exactly a happy ending!
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Yea….that was a big motivator for him to do the Anthology unfortunately…well I”m glad he did
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Glad it worked, Lisa! 🙂
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