The song came on a playlist on my Amazon Music app, and it sent me down a little rabbit trail.
I assume everyone knows that “My Sweet Lord” is about Krishna, although some people who don’t listen carefully think it’s about Jesus, or at least pretend that it is.
Imagine the various reactions to this song.
The “generally spiritual” person might think, “Okay, if that’s what he likes, more power to him. If it gives meaning to his life, so much the better.”
The fundamentalist might think, “He’s a demon worshipper. Don’t listen to that song so you’re not infected!”
The liberal Christian might think, “He’s on to something, just not the right something.”
The Jungian psychologist might think, “Krisha is a fundamental archetype that permeates all of human experience. This kind of devotion is psychologically healthy.”
The “new atheist” might think, “Wrong, wrong, wrong. He’s wrong and stupid and wrong and … did I mention stupid?”
Which of these reactions is the least human?
I don’t know which of those reactions is the least stupid, but there is one more: “It’s a very boring, repetitious song.” I often don’t pay much attention to lyrics, so the cornball references to Krishna don’t really bother me very much. I like George Harrison’s voice and his style, but this is not one of his great successes.
This one, also “religious” in some way and from the same album, is much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmo8L7NlURQ
“Searching for the truth among the lying” is a really nice lyric.
Hmm. Interesting song, but I think Harrison is more in his element with things like “What is Life.”
“What is Life” is also one of my favorites by him.
Of the reactions list, I think they’re all pretty human but the last is definitely the least constructive, not merely to dialogue but to the mind of the speaker himself. It appears to come from a place of reactivity rather than the smallest reflection on what he’s hearing apart from certain triggers, although arguably the fundamentalist reaction does the same thing.
But actually, I’m with Robin on this one. The best reaction is really, “That’s not a very good song.”
Hmm. What makes a song good?
“it was the biggest-selling single of 1971 in the UK. In America and Britain, the song was the first number-one single by an ex-Beatle.”
A lot of people liked it. So, objectively speaking, it was a very good song.
If we judge by record sales, we’re going to have regard Michael Jackson as way better than Mozart.
Who says we shouldn’t? Maybe in your oppressive Euro-centric white male perspective, Mozart is better, but who are you to judge?
Certainly Michael wouldn’t have been a hit in 18th century Europe. They would have considered him vulgar. But who’s the better singer? Of course, we don’t know how well Mozart sang, but odds are Michael was a better singer.
“A lot of people like something so therefore it is an objectively good thing” is not a line of argument I would have thought to hear from Crowhill himself.
That said, I was offering my opinion and, as I believe is normal when someone holds an opinion, assuming that it was a correct one.
That’s slightly different than what I was saying, but …. When you ask “is X a good song,” I would think that how well people like it is certainly part of the answer. It also depends on what you mean by good. Something might be popular and not meet certain artistic standards. There have certainly been some popular books that many people regard as complete garbage.
Yet another response would be: “He is delusional, but such is humanity. Let’s not be misanthropes!”
I think your boner for the new atheists is showing. You have the others basically saying one expression, and then you have the atheist going on and on. Not my experience. I’d say the fundamentalist would go on and on too.
The fundamentalist would then want to play the record backwards and get you to imagine you’re hearing something.
Most atheists probably wouldn’t give Harrison’s song much more than a thought like “whatever” and move on.
Now this is the stuff: https://excatholic4christ.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/question-when-george-harrison-was-singing-my-sweet-lord-who-was-he-singing-to/
Are there still fundamentalists and evangelicals concerned with satanic messages hidden in rock music which are revealed when played backwards? They keep changing their narrative about the evils lurking in the culture. At one time rock music itself was evil. Then it was specifically metal. Now I see that some of them are even metal freaks. I pointed out this shifting of the goal post to an evangelical metal freak on Facebook, but he never responded.