The subject matter deals with the transient nature of human existence, and in Harrison's All Things Must Pass reading, words and music combine to reflect impressions of optimism against fatalism.

[2] The recording was co-produced by Phil Spector in London; it features an orchestral arrangement by John Barham and contributions from musicians such as Ringo Starr, Pete Drake, Bobby Whitlock, Eric Clapton and Klaus Voormann.

Like his friend Eric Clapton, George Harrison was inspired by Music from Big Pink, the seminal debut album[3] from the Band, the former backing group for Bob Dylan.

[4][5] Released in July 1968, Music from Big Pink was partly responsible for Harrison's return to the guitar, his first instrument,[6] after he had spent two years attempting to master the more complex Indian sitar.

[7][8] Harrison duly shared his enthusiasm with the British music press, declaring Big Pink "the new sound to come from America", drummer Levon Helm later recalled, thus helping to establish the Band internationally.

[1][14] According to Helm, they discussed making a possible "fireside jam" album with Clapton and an Apple Films "rock western" called Zachariah, but neither project progressed beyond the planning stage.

[19] While discussing "All Things Must Pass" with music journalist Timothy White in 1987, Harrison recalled that his "starting point" for the composition was Robertson's "The Weight" – a song that had "a religious and a country feeling to it".

[11] Musically, the verses of "All Things Must Pass" are set to a logical climb within the key of E;[20] the brief choruses form a departure from this, with their inclusion of a B minor chord rather than the more expected major voicing.

[21] For his lyrics, Harrison drew inspiration from "All Things Pass", a poem published in Timothy Leary's 1966 book Psychedelic Prayers after the Tao Te Ching.

[32] He had initially written the second line of verse two as "A wind can blow those clouds away",[33] but John Lennon suggested the word "mind" to introduce a bit of "psychedelia" into the song,[34] after a misinterpretation of Mal Evans' handwriting.

[36] In contrast with the creative equality he enjoyed with Dylan and the Band in Woodstock,[37][38] Harrison returned to the Beatles to find the same discordant atmosphere that had blighted the White Album sessions in 1968.

[3][46] Although the band gave a fair amount of time to "All Things Must Pass", it was ultimately put aside,[47] just as other Harrison compositions including "Old Brown Shoe", "Isn't It a Pity", "Let It Down" and "I Me Mine" received a lukewarm reception,[48][49] particularly from Lennon.

[52] Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt, authors of Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of The Beatles' Let It Be Disaster, observe that Lennon and McCartney routinely rejected Harrison's songs, "even though some were far better than their own".

[78] While completing his production on Preston's release,[79] Harrison chose to record the song himself for what became the title track of his post-Beatles solo debut, the triple album All Things Must Pass.

[80] In describing "All Things Must Pass" as a "haunting hymn about the mortality of everything", author Elliot Huntley notes the added poignance in Harrison's version, due to the death of his mother in July 1970 after a long period of illness.

[75] The recording opens with "unvaryingly steady" piano chords, Inglis writes,[21] and what Leng terms "sensitive" string orchestration from John Barham,[27] soon joined by the horns and Drake's pedal steel.

[98][nb 5] Almost two years after Harrison wrote the song, "All Things Must Pass" was released in November 1970,[49] closing side three of the triple album in its original LP format.

[106][107] The album's cover image, showing Harrison seated on his Friar Park lawn surrounded by four reclining garden gnomes – thought to represent the Beatles – was also viewed as reflecting this theme.

[108] While commenting that "All Things Must Pass" had "accrue[d] new layers of relevance" during the album's creation, particularly with the death of Harrison's mother, former Mojo editor Paul Du Noyer writes: "Nobody in November 1970 could have mistaken the title's significance ... As if to cement the association of ideas, the wry cover picture has George in solitary splendour, surrounded by a quartet of gnomes.

"[105] 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".

[107] 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),[113] with Richie Unterberger writing of its autumnal theme: "It's the kind of song that fits the mood in November, when the trees are getting stripped bare of their leaves, the days are getting shorter and colder, and you have to resign yourself to knowing it's going to be tougher and tougher in those regards for months, also knowing that those hardships will pass away come springtime.

"[114] 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".

"[21] Elliot Huntley rates it as one of Harrison's "most beautiful" songs, "if not the very best", and suggests that the sentiments behind "All Things Must Pass" would have made it a "fitting conclusion" to the final album recorded by the Beatles, Abbey Road (1969).

[122][123] The pair were on the show to promote their recent collaboration, Chants of India,[123] but at host John Fugelsang's urging, Harrison accepted an acoustic guitar and performed a brief rendition of "All Things Must Pass".

[138] At the Concert for George tribute to Harrison, held at London's Royal Albert Hall on 29 November 2002, Paul McCartney sang "All Things Must Pass",[2] backed by a large band that included Preston, Clapton, Voormann and Starr.