Discussing the reception to '' Gone Troppo '' in their book '' Eight Arms to Hold You '' , Chip Madinger and Mark Easter identify " Circles " as the only track " reflecting weightier matters " on what was otherwise Harrison 's " frothiest " collection of songs to date , and they conclude : " Sadly , a decent album was lost in the shuffle of the rapidly changing marketplace of the early ' 80 's . " In his contemporary review for '' Musician '' magazine , Roy Trakin wrote that , following Lennon 's murder two years before , Harrison 's " tortured honesty " undermined the album 's " attempt to heal those psychic wounds with calm , offhanded music " . He said that " not even Billy Preston can rescue … the maudlin tautologies of the closing ' Circles ' . " More impressed with '' Gone Troppo '' , Dave Thompson wrote in '' Goldmine '' in 2002 that , together with " Dream Away " , " Circles " " stand s alongside any number of Harrison 's minor classics " . Writing in 2017 , Jamie Atkins of '' Record Collector '' also challenged the poor reputation that the album had gained . Among its highlights , he said that " Circles turns the creepy , bad acid vibes of Harrison 's 1968 demo into one of his finest solo tracks . " In his book '' The Unreleased Beatles '' , Richie Unterberger describes the song as " a pretty neat , if droning , reflection of Harrison 's more somber spiritual sensibilities " . He views the 1968 demo as a version that " exerts by far the greater fascination " compared with Harrison 's later recording . Author John Winn dismisses " Circles " as " a depressing number that makes ' Blue Jay Way ' sound like a Little Richard freakout " , while Ian MacDonald describes it as " a typically perceptive , if deeply gloomy , song about '' karma '' " . Harrison biographer Elliot Huntley dismisses the 1982 version as Harrison 's " worst-ever composition " , adding : " A heavy , spiritual dirge , somehow redolent of ' Blue Jay Way , ' but different inasmuch as it 's nowhere near as good … you can almost hear the song-writing barrel being scraped . " By contrast , Simon Leng admires " Circles " as " one of its composer 's most complex pieces " , and he pairs the song with " Beware of Darkness " as " a study in Harrison 's unique harmonic sense " . In light of its release as the final track on '' Gone Troppo '' , Leng adds : " ' Circles ' was so personal and eccentric that it seemed to close the book on George 's recording career . It felt like he was making music only for himself . " According to the '' Gone Troppo '' CD credits and Simon Leng :
Lennon 's murder
Murder of John Lennon
Circles (George Harrison song)