The musical arrangement also features multiple acoustic guitars, a heavy drum sound and orchestral strings, and so recalls Harrison's early 1970s recordings with Phil Spector.
[2] After completing promotion for his first album on his Dark Horse record label, Thirty Three & 1/3, in February 1977, George Harrison spent the remainder of the year following the Formula 1 world championship itinerary and having little involvement with the music industry.
[13][14][nb 1] For Wright, the period from late 1977 was one of self-doubt due to the commercial failure of his album Touch and Gone, which continued the downward trend of his career following his long-sought-after breakthrough with The Dream Weaver over 1975–76.
[20] Author Simon Leng comments that the adoption of a three-word title recalls Harrison's early 1970s hits "My Sweet Lord" and "Give Me Love", and that, with "If You Believe", he and Wright add a "gospel-infused hook" to that formula.
[13] Leng identifies Hall & Oates' "The Last Time" – which was a homage to Spector's 1960s productions,[42] and featured a slide guitar part by Harrison – as the trigger for his return to the All Things Must Pass sound.
[46] Coinciding with the release, Harrison and Arias attended the Brazilian Grand Prix[47][48] in São Paulo,[49] and were joined there by Wright and his wife, who were travelling in South America at the time.
"[64][65] People's reviewer recognised the song as typifying the album's "lyrically cheery and thematically uplifting" qualities but also its prevalence of unremarkable arrangements, saying that the performance on the track was "reminiscent of the Big Sound (slide guitar, horns et al) Harrison achieved on his epic All Things Must Pass".
George identified "If You Believe" as one of the few tracks on which the backing musicians were "breaking sweat" amid the predominantly calm mood, although he viewed it and "Love Comes to Everyone" as "solid medium-pacers, neither thrilling nor negligible".
[68] PopMatters' Jason Korenkiewicz welcomed the 2004 reissue of George Harrison, and described the song as a "brief but joyous country spiritual" that was among the three standout tracks, along with "Blow Away" and "Here Comes the Moon".
[69] Former Mojo editor Mat Snow praises the same three songs as the best of Harrison's "romantic and reflective" songwriting on the album and says that this quality was complemented by Titelman's "tastefully contemporary" sound.
Metzger said that "Each track on George Harrison was a folk-pop gem that felt like a lost Beatles tune" and added that, although the production was sometimes overly polished, "the slicker textures weren't enough to sink the often airy and uplifting arrangements.
[71] Ian Inglis writes that the song "lacks the innovative qualities of 'Within You Without You,' the melodic impact of 'My Sweet Lord,' and the lyrical complexity of 'Living in the Material World'", and he views it as "a perfectly pleasant but ultimately unremarkable track".
[14] Simon Leng comments that, whereas the sound on George Harrison generally signals both a maturation of and a departure from the artist's previous work, the song appears formulaic and derivative.