Is This What You Want? superstar backing musicians, saying, "they're always talkin' about who's on the album and not the album itself." Writing in "ZigZag" in July 1974, Andy Childs advised the magazine's readers: "it's worth its weight in gold, so if it's absent from your collection, add it to your shopping list of second-hand records." Greenfield and Childs both recognised Harrison's "Sour Milk Sea" as a highlight of the album. Richie Unterberger of AllMusic offers a less favourable opinion of "Is This What You Want?", describing Lomax as "a passable but unarresting singer and songwriter". Unterberger identifies the best moments as the "Beatlesque" songs
What Wondrous Love Is This Bryan included "What Wondrous Love Is This" in his folk opera "Singin' Billy". In 1958, American composer Samuel Barber composed "Wondrous Love: Variations on a Shape Note Hymn" (Op. 34), a work for organ, for Christ Episcopal Church in Grosse Pointe, Michigan; the church's organist, an associate of Barber's, had requested a piece for the dedication ceremony of the church's new organ. The piece begins with a statement that closely follows the traditional hymn; four variations follow, of which the last is the "longest and most expressive". Dwayne S. Milburn composed a prelude on "Wondrous Love" as the first movement