Release and Reception
Almost two years after Harrison originally wrote the song, "All Things Must Pass" was released in November 1970, closing side three of the triple album in its original LP format. Acknowledging the extended recording history of the song and its critical acclaim on release, Madinger and Easter write that " wait was well worth it" for this "fine" composition. Beatles Forever author Nicholas Schaffner noted in 1977, with reference to Harrison's commercial and critical dominance over his former bandmates following the break-up: "The very fact that the Beatles had kept George's flowering talents so under wraps proved to be his secret weapon." Schaffner named "All Things Must Pass" and "Beware of Darkness" as the two most "eloquent" songs on the album, "musically as well as lyrically", with "mysterious, seductive melodies, over which faded strings and horns hover like Blue Jay Way fog". The song's title was invariably seen as Harrison's statement on the demise of the band.
On release, Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone described "All Things Must Pass" as "eloquently hopeful and resigned" while labelling the album "the music of mountain tops and vast horizons". Writing for the same publication thirty years later, Anthony DeCurtis praised the song for its musical demonstration of “the sweet satisfactions of faith”. In his book on Harrison, subtitled A Spiritual Biography, Gary Tillery refers to the song as "magisterial" and a "majestic title track" that "leaves even the shallowest listener contemplative". To Simon Leng, "All Things Must Pass" is "a classic of Harrison's lyrical ambiguity, in essence a hopeful song, without sounding so", with a lyric that "approaches Bob Dylan standard". Ian Inglis also praises the lyrics, writing: "The song contains some of Harrison's most insightful and pensive words. 'Daylight is good at arriving at the right time' is a fine example of his ... ability to position the profound within the commonplace."
Elliot Huntley rates "All Things Must Pass" as one of Harrison's "most beautiful" songs, "if not the very best", and the "centrepiece" of its parent album. Huntley questions why it wasn't sequenced as the closing track to All Things Must Pass and adds: "In its sentiments, the song would actually have been an equally fitting conclusion to Abbey Road."
On a triple album where "nearly every song is excellent", Allmusic picks "All Things Must Pass" as one of five standout tracks (or AMG Track Picks). Bruce Spizer rates the song as a "highlight" of Harrison's career, while Leng goes further by declaring it "perhaps the greatest solo Beatle composition" of all.
In his acclaimed book Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald describes "All Things Must Pass" as "the wisest song never recorded by The Beatles".
Read more about this topic: All Things Must Pass (song)
Famous quotes containing the words release and, release and/or reception:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)