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'."