upstate New York. In addition to co-writing "I'd Have You Anytime" with Dylan, Harrison further established his independence from the Beatles during this visit, which music critic John Harris views as the foundation for All Things Must Pass. Among contemporary reviews of The Beatles, Alan Walsh of Melody Maker admired the song as "a gentle, lilting track" while, less impressed, Record Mirror considered it "not a strong tune", with drums "monopolising the sound". In his review for The Times, William Mann described "Long, Long, Long" as "a melting love song in slow waltz tempo" and rated it the equal of the nine best, "superbly inventive" compositions credited to Lennon–McCartney. Recalling the release in his 1977 book The Beatles Forever, Nicholas Schaffner said that in departing from the overtly Indian style of his previous compositions for the Beatles, Harrison had provided "a quartet of more conventionally accessible pop songs that many felt were among the finest on the [White Album]". Schaffner remarked on Harrison's limitations as a singer compared with Lennon and McCartney before adding: "but when he tones his voice down to an ethereal near-whisper, as in 'Long Long Long,' he can evoke as well as anyone the magic and the mystery of what [music journalist] Jonathan Cott has called 'the music of deep silence. In Newsweeks mainly unfavourable review of The Beatles, Hubert Saal concluded by saying that Harrison was the album's "hero" and that "Long, Long, Long" and "Savoy Truffle" were its best songs. He described the former as "deceptively simple, beautifully melodic and explosively punctuated". Retrospective assessment and legacy AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine views "Long, Long, Long" as "haunting" and, along with its composer's three other White Album tracks – "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Piggies" and "Savoy Truffle" – evidence that Harrison's songwriting "deserved wider exposure" than his typical quota of two songs on each Beatles LP. Less impressed with Harrison's other contributions to the album, Ian MacDonald welcomes "Long, Long, Long" with the words: "at last – the real George." MacDonald considers it to be "Harrison's finest moment on The Beatles: simple, direct, and, in its sighing, self-annihilating coda, devastatingly expressive". Conversely, although he acknowledges its effectiveness in following "Helter Skelter", Tim Riley identifies "Long, Long, Long" as the weakest of the four Harrison songs, which are otherwise all "essentials" and "regain[ed] the promise" shown by his three compositions on the Beatles' Revolver album.