Harrison wrote the song in 1973 but recorded it two years later, following the unfavourable critical reception afforded his 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar and the Dark Horse album.

[1] Much of the critical reaction to George Harrison's 1974 album Dark Horse was scathing and focused on his near-completed North American tour with Ravi Shankar, which took place in November and December that year.

[16] For the shows' encore, Harrison turned his biggest solo hit, "My Sweet Lord", into an "exhortation to chant God's name", author Alan Clayson writes,[17] be it Krishna, Buddha, Christ or Allah.

[19] Early in the tour, Harrison also used religiosity to defend his decision to feature few Beatles-era songs in the setlist,[20] telling Ben Fong-Torres of Rolling Stone magazine: "Gandhi says create and preserve the image of your choice.

[28] Another biographer, Joshua Greene, concludes of Harrison's post-tour mindset: "He grappled with the depressing realization that most people simply didn't care to hear about Krishna or maya or getting liberated from birth and death ... A man whose natural instinct was to share his life-transforming discoveries with others had been rejected ..."[29] Author Robert Rodriguez suggests that one of the reasons for Harrison's follow-up album, Extra Texture (Read All About It), being rushed into production in April 1975 was to "redeem the artist from negative fallout" created by Dark Horse over the winter of 1974–75.

[37] On the released recording, it is dominated by piano, which provides the main instrumentation over the first two verses, before what author Elliot Huntley describes as the song's "sped up second section", featuring a full band backing.

[43] This repeated line is viewed as significant by Tillery and by Christian theologian Dale Allison, on the basis of whether Harrison intended the final word to be "home" or the sacred Sanskrit term "Om".

[48] While noting that the ancient Hindu text Bhagavad Gita "identifies the sound 'OM' with Brahman and promises that chanting it with attention on one's deathbed will lead one to 'the highest goal'", Allison writes of its possible inclusion in the context of "World of Stone": "All pontifical pronouncements have ceased.

[39] Leng presents three possible interpretations for this couplet: "another play on the blind seer idea"; Harrison's rejection of the concept espoused in his 1968 Beatles composition "The Inner Light", "that knowledge is the key to enlightenment"; or, like his 1975 rebuttal to detractors such as Rolling Stone, "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)", a "dig at smartass rock journalists".

[31][55] Recognising that Harrison was "bottoming out from events of the past couple of years", according to Rodriguez, Voormann's participation on "World of Stone" marked a relatively rare appearance by the German bass player at the Extra Texture sessions.

[34] Although the album's musicians credits provide no personnel for the chorus singing,[61] Madinger and Easter list Harrison, Davis, Foster and Attitudes singer Paul Stallworth as having participated in the 2 June session.

[65] Rodriguez comments on the "joyous" quality of the Motown-inspired A-side compared with the "slower or darker groove" of the album's more recent songs, of which "World of Stone" was "every bit as downbeat as the [title] suggested".

"[74][75] Having shown a patronising attitude towards his former Beatles bandmates earlier in the year, according to author and journalist Peter Doggett, Paul McCartney spoke out in support of Harrison in an interview with the NME,[76] saying: "He's so straight and so ordinary and so real.

[80] While the album's lyrics contained only minimal religious or spiritual references,[59] its artwork (which was based on sketches provided by Harrison)[81] included a blue Om symbol displayed prominently on the vivid orange cover.

[87] Writing in 1981, Bob Woffinden commented in response to "World of Stone" and other songs that "again plead plaintively with critics not to judge too severely": "In this different context [a year on from Dark Horse], such pleas are more sympathetic.

"[90][nb 7] Gary Tillery groups the song with the Extra Texture tracks "Grey Cloudy Lies" and "Tired of Midnight Blue" as examples of Harrison having reached "rock bottom" in 1975.

[94] Elliot Huntley views "World of Stone" as overlong, with the shouted backing vocals "annoying" and Harrison's guitar sound "thin and weedy", and he bemoans that "the melody doesn't really deviate from its beginnings".

Trynka writes that the track exemplifies its composer's "knack for taking a sweet melody in an unpredictable direction", and he adds: "Today, when pop stars swig Cristal and flash their pecs on Instagram, we can appreciate the irony of Harrison being attacked for preaching enlightenment.