• Portuguese Translation
• Spanish Translation

Written in India. A song about Mia Farrow’s sister, who seemed to go slightly barmy, meditating too long, and couldn’t come out of the little hut that we were livin’ in. They selected me and George to try and bring her out because she would trust us. If she’d been in the West, they would have put her away. We got her out of the house. She’d been locked in for three weeks and wouldn’t come out, trying to reach God quicker than anybody else. That was the competition in Maharishi’s camp: who was going to get cosmic first. What I didn’t know was I was already cosmic.

– John Lennon

The lyrics are simple and innocent and celebrate the beauty of nature, particularly in the lines: “The sun is up, the sky is blue / It’s beautiful, and so are you.” Author Mark Hertsgaard finds “Dear Prudence” typical of Lennon’s work in that it “transcends its origins” to provide a wider message. He says that the lyrics further an idea first espoused by Lennon in “Nowhere Man” in 1965, namely: “Don’t hide from life, you have reason to smile, wake up and play your part in the grand scheme of things.”

According to music critic Kenneth Womack, “Prudence” serves as one of the many literary figures the Beatles created for the White Album, along with Sexy Sadie (representing the Maharishi), Bungalow Bill, Rocky Raccoon and other characters named in the titles of the songs they wrote in Rishikesh. He likens the collection of these figures in the context of the double album to Impressionistic art, whereby the diverse elements are brought together to form a unifying song cycle. Music critic Tim Riley acknowledges the inspiration of Farrow on Lennon’s lyric but says that “ultimately it’s a song about sexual awakening, the heady euphoria of natural pleasures wooed by a sublime musical arc.”