Who Can See It
The lyrics reflect Harrison's uneasy feelings towards the Beatles' legacy, three years after the group's break-up, and serve as his statement of independence from expectations raised by the band's unprecedented popularity.
Some music critics and biographers suggest that he wrote the song during a period of personal anguish, following the acclaim he had received as a solo artist with the 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass and his 1971–72 Bangladesh aid project.
The revelatory nature of the lyrics has encouraged comparisons between Living in the Material World and John Lennon's primal therapy-inspired 1970 release, Plastic Ono Band.
[5] He writes of Harrison having been "deeply traumatized" by the effects of the Beatles' unprecedented popularity, and equally disoriented by his success as a solo artist following their break-up in April 1970.
[8] Music critic Stephen Holden highlighted a similar comparison between the two ex-Beatles in July 1973,[9] when he deemed Living in the Material World to be "as personal and confessional" as Lennon's primal therapy-inspired Plastic Ono Band album (1970).
[11] During the Beatles' career, Harrison had been the first to tire of Beatlemania and the group's celebrity status,[12] and he had written songs rejecting what Leng terms the "artifice" surrounding the band.
[15] In addition, for Harrison, while he began to match Lennon and Paul McCartney as a songwriter towards the end of the group's career,[16][17] his relatively junior position in the Beatles was a source of frustration to him,[18] which, according to music journalist Mikal Gilmore, left "deep and lasting wounds".
[42] In Leng's description, the melody features "sweepingly large chromatic intervals", beginning with the verse's third line – a four-semitone swoop that recalls the ascending melismas commonly used in Indian music.
[50] Theologian Dale Allison views the mention of "this sad world" as a further reference to the essentially "tragic" nature of human existence, after "All Things Must Pass" and in anticipation of later Harrison songs such as "Stuck Inside a Cloud", in that "notwithstanding all the success and adulation", ultimately, "we are all alone".
[41] In another Beatles comparison, music journalists Alan Clayson and John Metzger consider Harrison's production on Material World to be similar to George Martin's work with the band.
[53] As can be heard in the outtake of "Who Can See It" available unofficially on the Living in the Alternate World bootleg,[72] Gary Wright's original contribution was a prominent harmonium part, superseded by Barham's strings and brass on the released version.
[74][75] "Who Can See It" appeared as track 5 on side one of the LP format,[76] in between what Leng terms the "perfect pop confection" "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long"[77] and another song that referenced Harrison's Beatle past, "Living in the Material World".
[84][85] According to author Michael Frontani, lines such as "My life belongs to me" in "Who Can See It" "betrayed sentiments of a man increasingly at odds … with fans and critics who wanted him to be 'Beatle George,' or at least to be less fixated on his spirituality".
[86] In his review for Rolling Stone, Stephen Holden wrote that, amid Material World's "miraculous ... radiance", the song represented "passionate testament" and "a beautiful ballad whose ascendant long-line melody is the most distinguished of the album".
[85] Some recent reviewers have been less enthusiastic, with PopMatters' Zeth Lundy opining that, rather than Harrison's more "stripped-down" production aesthetic, "Who Can See It" would have benefited from "the hyper-drama of All Things Must Pass' resonant abyss".
[55] Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Greg Kot similarly bemoaned the "hymn-like calm" of the performance and its falling short of the "transcendent heights" of Harrison's 1970 triple set.
[89] In his review of the 2014 reissue of Harrison's Apple catalogue, for Classic Rock, Paul Trynka refers to Material Word as an album that "sparkles with many gems"; of these, he adds, "it's the more restrained tracks – Don't Let Me Wait Too Long, Who Can See It – that entrance: gorgeous pop songs, all the more forceful for their restraint.
[41] Harrison dropped the song in a program reshuffle following the opening show, however,[97] due to his laryngitis-ravaged vocals cords being unable to carry such a demanding tune.
