One Last Song. Track 7, Side 2: My Sweet Lord by George Harrison
Giving voice to the longing at the end of the road
My dad taught me every epic journey deserves a great soundtrack. My PalliMed Mixtape is the story of my Palliative Medicine Fellowship year, told in 15 songs.
All things must pass, even mixtapes.
As I have come to the end of this PalliMed fellowship, so, too, have we come to the end of My PalliMed Mixtape.
Choosing the final song for a mixtape is no trivial decision. It’s the song that sticks with you long after you leave the car, turn off the Walkman, or power down the stereo. It’s the song that sends to future listeners the final message, or the final feel you wish to impart.
I think I most often used U2 songs to end my mixtapes back in the day. Now there’s a band that understands the importance of a great coda! Their albums end beautifully, on a bit of a spiritual high, and their last song’s lyrical content is often more overtly religious than the rest of their work. 40, All I Want Is You, Love Is Blindness, Yahweh…these were all U2 album-enders that wrapped up a mixtape or a mixed CD I made at some point. Why, then, am I not ending this mixtape with U2’s Mothers of the Disappeared or even Wake Up Dead Man?
Well, I think I can place the blame for this U2 omission squarely on the shoulders of Peter Jackson’s documentary, The Beatles: Get Back. I hope you got to see this film, too. It’s fantastic for so many reasons.
After watching this documentary in the winter of 2021, I became, in no small way, obsessed with the quiet Beatle, George Harrison. There’s a gentleness in his persona, a pathos and a spiritual yearning in his work near the end of the Beatles’ incredible run and at the start of his solo career that really resonates. I’ve since explored his music more than I ever had before—there’s so much good stuff there. It’s one of his biggest hits from his first solo album that seems like the right way to wrap up this mixtape. If you don’t know the song, My Sweet Lord, click above and take a listen. If you do know the song, listen again. It’s so simple and lovely.
My sweet Lord / My Lord / Mmm, Sweet Lord / I really want to see you / I really want to be with you / Really want to see you, Lord / But it takes so long, my Lord
Can you believe this song exists? And was popular? On rock radio? This song was still playing on the radio regularly when I was a teenager in the mid 1990s. I heard it often on the local classic rock station as I cruised around Houston in my uncle’s hand-me-down Chevy Suburban. Can you imagine the deejay introducing it? “And that was Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones. Next up, My Sweet Lord, by George Harrison.” What a contradiction. God bless you, quiet George. Popular music really can be about so much more than sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.
In the end, I think the desire expressed in this song—to see God—is a big reason why I did this fellowship. It’s a big reason I love this work.
According to the gospel of Matthew in the Bible’s New Testament, Jesus taught that whatever good work we have done for the “least of these” we have actually done for God. I think this means that in some way then, we can have glimpses of the divine in the people around us and the patients we have the privilege to serve. Perhaps this line of thought inspired Victor Hugo when he wrote in Les Miserables “To love another person is to see the face of God.” In loving others, maybe we glance little windows into heaven, even in the midst of this messy complicated world. We see little slivers of light in the midst of these often dark and desperate journeys.
(Victor Hugo by Auguste Rodin)
My Sweet Lord / I really want to see you
In the end, this desire to see God and be with God is expressed by many of our palliative patients, too. They have run their race, and they can see the finish line. All the good, all the bad, all the triumph, all the heartbreak, all the joys, and all the pain. It’s coming to an end. Now it’s time to be with their Lord. That’s the promise at the end of it all. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring! And they know they are close. They can feel the Presence. A serenity sets in. A peace envelops. They breathe their last. And then…
Well, I guess only they know for sure. But I share their hope that there’s a beautiful chorus they get to join, and that they will come to find that they are with their Sweet Lord at the end of it all. Hallelujah.
Thank you for checking out My PalliMed Mixtape. I’ve had a blast sharing it with you. Copy it, listen to it, wear it out.
But more importantly, make a mixtape of your own. Choose the songs that tell your story. Copy it, share it, wear it out. And send me a copy! I’ll be listening.
Here’s a track listing one last time of the journey we’ve been on.
Side 1
Side 2
Related Article: The AI Went Down to Georgia —the harrowing tale of my duel with ChatGPT for mixtape superiority
Hope you enjoy your summer, and I hope it’s full of great music!
Tell me, Crash Cart Campfire friends:
What do you think awaits at the end of the journey?
What song would you choose to end your current mixtape?
What song would start your next one?
What’s on your mixtape?