The 1970s File Feature
What Is Life
George Harrison and "What Is Life": Creation, Recording, and Chart History George Harrison wrote "What Is Life" during the extraordinarily productive period …
01 The Story
George Harrison and "What Is Life": Creation, Recording, and Chart History
George Harrison wrote "What Is Life" during the extraordinarily productive period in which he was assembling material for the triple album All Things Must Pass, released in November 1970. The song had originally been composed with the intention of offering it to Billy Preston, the keyboard player and session musician who had worked extensively with The Beatles in the final years of the band and whose gospel-inflected playing style suited the song's energetic feel. Harrison ultimately retained the track for himself when the album came together, and it became one of the more joyful and extroverted compositions on a record that spanned considerable emotional range.
The recording sessions for All Things Must Pass were produced by Harrison and Phil Spector, whose Wall of Sound production method was applied across much of the album. "What Is Life" benefited from this approach particularly well, as the song's propulsive energy and layered guitar work suited Spector's tendency toward dense, richly textured arrangements. The track featured multiple guitars, a prominent horn section, and a rhythmic drive that distinguished it from the more meditative spiritual songs elsewhere on the album.
The album itself debuted to enormous commercial and critical success, becoming the first post-Beatles solo album by any of the four former members to reach number one in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Harrison had spent years as the third voice in The Beatles, often overshadowed by the prolific Lennon-McCartney partnership, and All Things Must Pass announced with considerable force that he had accumulated a backlog of songwriting of exceptional quality.
"What Is Life" was released as a single in the United States in February 1971, approximately three months after the parent album appeared. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on February 27, 1971, debuting at position 66. The single then climbed with notable speed through the upper reaches of the chart, moving to 27, then 19, then 15 before reaching its peak of number 10 during the week of March 27, 1971. The song spent nine weeks total on the Hot 100, demonstrating sustained audience interest beyond its initial chart surge.
The peak position of number 10 made "What Is Life" Harrison's second major American hit from the album, following "My Sweet Lord," which had reached number one in December 1970 and remained one of the best-selling singles of that year. The one-two commercial combination of the two singles cemented Harrison's standing as a major solo artist in his own right, no longer solely defined by his former band membership.
In the United Kingdom, "What Is Life" was not released as a standalone single at the time, as the British market strategy for All Things Must Pass had been different. However, the song accumulated a large following through album exposure and radio play, and it has since been included on numerous compilation releases across both markets.
Critical reception at the time of release emphasized the track's buoyancy and the contrast it provided against the more weighty spiritual content of other Harrison compositions on the album. Reviewers noted the infectious horn-driven arrangement and the almost irrepressible forward momentum of the recording. Over the subsequent decades, "What Is Life" has appeared in numerous film soundtracks, advertising campaigns, and television programs, each use extending its cultural footprint considerably.
The song gained renewed popular attention in 1993 when it was prominently featured in the film Unlawful Entry and again when it appeared in the widely seen film and soundtrack for Goodfellas-adjacent productions, as well as in multiple other commercial contexts. Each subsequent placement introduced the track to audiences who had not encountered it through its original chart run, ensuring its continuous circulation in popular culture well beyond its initial commercial moment.
02 Song Meaning
Themes and Meaning in "What Is Life" by George Harrison
"What Is Life" presents the central question of its title not as a philosophical inquiry in any abstract academic sense, but as an expression of wonder rooted in personal love and spiritual experience. The narrator frames his sense of meaning in terms of his relationship with another person, asserting that without that person his existence loses its coherence and purpose. The song's emotional logic interweaves romantic devotion with the kind of searching spiritual reflection that characterizes Harrison's body of work throughout this period.
Harrison was deeply engaged during the composition of All Things Must Pass with questions of spiritual purpose drawn from his practice of Vaishnavism, a devotional Hindu tradition that he had encountered through his interest in Indian music and culture during The Beatles years. The album as a whole reflects this orientation, and "What Is Life," while lighter in tone than some of the explicitly devotional tracks, carries the same underlying concern with what makes existence meaningful and worthy.
The song describes the narrator's dependence on the other person in almost existential terms. Without this presence, the sky loses its color, the world loses its sense. This imagery of perceptual and emotional impoverishment in the absence of the beloved is a classic trope in love poetry, but Harrison frames it with a directness and sincerity that avoids the formulaic. The question in the title becomes the question the narrator is answering through the relationship itself.
In the context of the broader album, "What Is Life" serves as a kind of emotional counterweight. While much of All Things Must Pass deals with themes of impermanence, spiritual seeking, and the complexities of Harrison's exit from The Beatles, this track offers something more immediately joyful and affirmative. The celebratory arrangement, with its brass section and driving rhythm, underscores the song's function as a declaration of gratitude rather than a meditation on difficulty.
Culturally, the song has been received as one of Harrison's most approachable and joyful compositions, frequently cited as an example of how his spiritual concerns and his pop instincts could align productively. The question posed in the title resonates across religious and secular contexts alike, giving the song a universality that extends well beyond any specific doctrinal framework. Whether heard as a love song, a spiritual declaration, or simply as an expression of joy in existence, the track communicates its central emotion with consistent effectiveness.
The song's durability in popular culture has been aided by its appearance in numerous film and television productions over the decades following its original release. Each placement has introduced the song to new audiences while reinforcing its existing reputation among listeners who knew it from its original chart run. This pattern of rediscovery through screen media is common among recordings of genuine quality from the early 1970s, but few tracks from that period have proven as consistently useful to filmmakers and television producers seeking music that communicates joy and wonder without irony or qualification. The song's optimism is uncomplicated in a way that is surprisingly rare in Harrison's output and in the broader catalog of the period, and that uncomplicated quality has given it a particular longevity and appeal across changing cultural moments.
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