For his lyrics, Harrison drew inspiration from "All Things Pass", a poem published in Timothy Leary's 1966 book "Psychedelic Prayers after the Tao Te Ching". In his 1980 autobiography, "I Me Mine", Harrison refers to the idea for the song originating from "all kinds of mystics and ex-mystics", including Leary. Like later Harrison compositions such as "Here Comes the Sun", "So Sad" and "Blow Away", the lyrical and emotional content is based around metaphors involving the weather and the cycle of nature. Harrison states in the opening lines of verse one: "Sunrise doesn't last all morning / A cloudburst doesn't last all day".