As well as reflecting her failure to keep the appointment, the lyrics provide a light-hearted insight into the Los Angeles music scene and comment on the growing crisis in East Pakistan that led Harrison to stage the Concert for Bangladesh in August that year.

After arriving in London from Los Angeles in mid-May 1968, to start work at the Beatles' Apple Corps headquarters at the invitation of her friend Derek Taylor,[1] Chris O'Dell began a career that saw her become, in author Philip Norman's words, "the ultimate insider" in rock-music circles.

[2] In the space of two years, O'Dell witnessed first-hand a series of key moments in rock 'n' roll:[citation needed] she joined in the backing chorus on the song "Hey Jude"; she was on the Apple rooftop in January 1969 when the Beatles played live for the last time; she personally delivered the harmonicas for Bob Dylan's comeback performance at the Isle of Wight; and on the day Paul McCartney announced he was leaving the Beatles, she was there at George Harrison's Friar Park mansion when Harrison and John Lennon met to discuss the news.

[7] By April 1971, O'Dell was back in California, working with former Apple Records A&R manager Peter Asher on developing the careers of singer-songwriters such as James Taylor, Carole King and Linda Ronstadt.

[13][14] This was an issue that Harrison dealt with in the opening verse of a song he began writing, "Miss O'Dell",[15] while waiting for his eponymous friend to visit him at his rented Malibu home:[11][16] I'm the only one down here who's got Nothing to say about the war or the rice That keeps going astray on its way to Bombay ...Adopting a considerably more lighthearted approach than would be the case in his "storming, urgent" song "Bangla Desh" a couple of months later,[17] these lines refer to international donations of rice, which "somehow" ended up becoming the property of the Indian Government instead and either being sold in government shops in India, or getting exported back to the West to be sold in Indian shops there.

[18]) His disenchantment with the Californian surroundings and O'Dell's failure to turn up as arranged[19] are reflected in the next lines:[20] That smog that keeps polluting up our shores Is boring me to tears Why don't you call me, Miss O'Dell?In verse two, Harrison describes the ocean-front house, the balcony of which stretched out over the waves below:[11] I'm the only one down here who's got Nothing to fear from the waves or the night That keeps rolling on right up to my front porch ...Inside the house, neither he nor his driver Ben could get the record player to work,[11] and Harrison admits to his absent friend over the song's middle eight: "I can tell you, nothing new / Has happened since I last saw you.

[52] Writing for AllMusic, Bruce Eder considers "Miss O'Dell" to be an "important bonus track" on the remastered Living in the Material World CD, as well as "an exuberant and richly produced, light-hearted number".

Perry described the film accompanying the alternative take as "a still photo slideshow of Harrison and his pals eating, drinking, and frolicking on the grounds of what may or may not be Friar Park, the former Beatle's estate", and admired the bonus DVD as perhaps the "pièce de résistance" of the deluxe edition of Material World.

Simon Leng describes it as a "jaunty, Dylanesque flip side", a "short musical postcard" from an ex-Beatle "[sent] off to rock star exile in Los Angeles" and obviously bored with what he finds there.

[55] Like Madinger and Easter, Ian Inglis welcomes the "spontaneous fun" evident in this "impromptu" recording, compared with Harrison's more "solemn" 1973 album, and recognises the influence of both Basement Tapes-era Bob Dylan & the Band as well as Lonnie Donegan's mid-1950s brand of skiffle.