The recording opens with "unvaryingly steady" piano chords, Inglis writes, and what Leng terms "sensitive" string orchestration from John Barham, soon joined by the horns and Drake's pedal steel. Leng highlights this combination as providing the song with its rising and falling musical moods, implying variously light and darkness; Inglis writes of the musical arrangement mirroring the "competing impressions" of hope and melancholy found in Harrison's lyrics. True to its Catskill roots, the recording evokes the Band's "The Weight" and their eponymous second album, the tracks on which were similarly inspired by "the beauty of that autumn in Woodstock", according to Helm.