What Is Life All", "Mystical One" and "Pisces Fish". Joshua Greene, another religious academic, identifies the song as part of its parent album's "intimately detailed account of a spiritual journey": where "Awaiting on You All" shows Harrison "convinced of his union with God", "What Is Life" reveals him to be "uncertain that he deserved such divine favor". The song's second verse repeats what Inglis refers to as the "somewhat confusing promise" from Harrison (in lines 3 and 4) should his love be "rejected": Musically, Simon Leng describes "What Is Life" as "Motown-spiced" and a comparatively rare example of its composer's willingness to embrace
What Is Life in the UK as perhaps the strongest of all of Harrison's singles. Writing in 1981, "NME" critic Bob Woffinden grouped "What Is LIfe" with "My Sweet Lord", "Isn't It a Pity" and "Awaiting on You All" as "all excellent songs". Reviewing the 2001 reissue of "All Things Must Pass", for "Rolling Stone", James Hunter wrote of how the album's music "exults in breezy rhythms", among which "the colorful revolutions of 'What Is Life' ... [move] like a Ferris wheel". The following year, in Rolling Stone Press's "Harrison" tribute book, David Fricke included "What Is Life" among his selection of "essential