"George Harrison" received favourable reviews, particularly in the UK, where it was his best-received work since the early 1970s. Harry George of the "NME" welcomed the inclusion of "Not Guilty", saying that "No Beatle who could take part in "All You Need Is Cash" can be all bad". He described the song as a "tense soft-shoe shuffle" in which Harrison's lyrics offered "wit and composure". Former "Record Collector" editor Peter Doggett writes that, in the context of its delayed release, eleven years after the events of 1968, the song "gently satirised the global obsession with the past, and specifically the era that the Beatles allegedly epitomised".