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 love song – perhaps a "lovingly crafted paen" to Harrison's wife Pattie, as Alan Clayson puts it – or a devotional song like many of Harrison's compositions. Ian Inglis writes that the song title suggests a "philosophical debate about the meaning of life", yet its rendering as ""what is my life"" in the choruses "reshapes [the meaning] completely". Theologian Dale Allison finds no religious content in "What Is Life" but notes the "failure of words to express feelings" implied in the opening line (""What I feel, I can't say""), a recurring theme of Harrison's spiritual songs such as "That Is