Was George Harrison guilty of plagiarism in ‘My Sweet Lord’?
Since the explosion of recorded music in the mid-20th century, the industry has been fraught with legal quandaries. More often than not, legal cases within the music industry pertain to plagiarism allegations. Art is evolutionary; new music will, therefore, always share some elements of prior material, but rights must be protected when an artist profits from another’s melody or lyric without appropriate citations and compensation. Even our greatest songwriters, such as Bob Dylan and George Harrison, have been accused of such violations in the past.
As a disciple of folk, Dylan learned to play by covering and adapting traditional songs. Much of his early material was derivative of prior progressions, and although Dylan soon picked up the electric guitar to pioneer folk rock, he never abandoned the folk process. Dylan’s formative hero, Woody Guthrie, once famously outlined the folk doctrine: “That guy stole that from me, but I steal from everybody.”
Whether warranted or not, this quote could offer the former Beatle George Harrison very little comfort in the early 1970s following the release of ‘My Sweet Lord’. The song arrived in 1970 as the lead single from All Things Must Pass, Harrison’s first solo album following the Beatles’ breakup earlier in the year.
‘My Sweet Lord’ was an immediate global hit, scaling the upper regions of most major charts, and remains the musician’s most popular solo hit to this day. Although Harrison enjoyed the track’s runaway popularity and vast exposure, it wouldn’t help him to evade plagiarism accusations and legal reprimand.
Within months of the song’s early success, Bright Tunes Music attempted to sue the former Beatle for plagiarism, arguing that ‘My Sweet Lord’ sounded too similar to The Chiffons’ 1963 hit ‘He’s So Fine’. One might have thought Harrison’s former bandmates would have his back in the inevitable PR war, but John Lennon agreed that The Chiffons had been cheated.
In All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon was asked about the long-fought ‘He’s So Fine’/’My Sweet Lord’ case: “Well, he walked right into it,” Lennon said. “He knew what he was doing.” Asked whether he thought Harrison had consciously plagiarised the single, Lennon added: “He must have known, you know, he’s smarter than that. It’s irrelevant, actually — only on a monetary level does it matter.”
Early in the case, Harrison’s famously disreputable manager, Allen Klein, dealt with Bright Tunes Music, discussing the matter. However, Bright Tunes soon filed for bankruptcy, leaving the case dormant until 1976. In the interim, Klein had severed ties with Harrison and, embittered, sought to damage his former client’s reputation as a representative for Bright Tunes.
With the tables turned, a weary Harrison offered $148,000 to have the case over with, but the opposition was unremitting in its agenda. The legal battle ensued in its full might, with the trial occurring on February 23rd and 25th, 1976. During the hearing, the two songs were examined in detail. It was noted that they shared two foundational musical motifs: ‘G-E-D’ and ‘G-A-C-A-C’. In ‘He’s So Fine’, both motifs are repeated four times, whereas ‘My Sweet Lord‘ repeats the first motif four times and the second motif three times.
The trial concluded that Harrison did not deliberately copy ‘My Sweet Lord’, but instead, he was found guilty of “subconscious plagiarism” in a verdict settled on August 31st, 1976. Since ‘My Sweet Lord’ claimed 70% of the airplay from its parent album, the judge ruled that Harrison should pay $1.6 million in compensation.
The situation worsened two years later when Klein’s company, ABKCO, purchased Bright Tunes for $587,000. This prompted Harrison to sue. In 1981, a judge declared that Klein wasn’t allowed to profit from the judgment and was entitled only to the $587,000 he paid for the company. All further proceeds from the case had to be remitted back to Harrison.
The case was finally put to bed in 1993. Reflecting on the two-decade saga in an interview with Rolling Stone, Harrison said: “It’s difficult to just start writing again after you’ve been through that. Even now, when I put the radio on, every tune I hear sounds like something else.”
“In the early years, I’d often carry around someone else’s song in my head, and only when I’d put it down on tape — because I can’t write music — would I consciously change it to my own melody because I knew that otherwise, somebody would sue me,” Lennon said of the case in 1980, shortly before his death. “George could have changed a few bars in that song, and nobody could have ever touched him, but he just let it go and paid the price. Maybe he thought God would just sort of let him off.”
Listen to ‘He’s So Fine’ and ’My Sweet Lord’ below.
