Dear Prudence

The track touches on childhood ('Like a little child'), along with the motifs of plea and spirituality, which the Beatles used more in 1965 than in any other year. There is simile in the writing, a thing they had done before, on 'And I Love Her' 4 years earlier. An extrametrical rhyme arrives once, "day hey / play". For anyone keeping count, the title drops a name into it.

'Dear Prudence' is a psychedelic and folk rock piece, written in D major and taken at about 67 BPM. The tune carries an ostinato, a pattern that keeps coming back (two repeating patterns run the length of the piece), a thing the Beatles had done before, on 'Ticket to Ride' 3 years earlier. The performance shows fingerpicking rather than strumming (donovan-taught descending pattern) and a guitar intro. It reaches for a min(maj7) chord, which turns up on six of their records, such as 'Till There Was You' and 'Michelle'. Listen to the shape and you find it never settles into verses and choruses. A curiosity, the chords run D7/C → C → G → D, the same move 'You Never Give Me Your Money' makes as C7 → B♭ → F → C. One more thing, 3 songs open on guitar alone, Blackbird, Dear Prudence, and Mother Nature's Son.

Cut at Trident Studios with Paul on drums, piano, and bass. The fingerpicked guitar pattern was the Donovan-taught style Lennon had learned at the ashram. He played the Gibson J-160E, his guitar, which they used more in 1964 than in any other year. Only four Beatles recordings reach for fade-in, and this is one. This one came 24th of the 37 songs they began recording in 1968, and 170th in the whole career.

Lennon wrote this one and sang it, and the record has a role swap on it, McCartney on flugelhorn and drums. It features a guest, Jackie Lomax, and the oddity in the credits is John McCartney and Mal Evans on handclaps, with Evans adding tambourine, from the Beatles' own circle. The acoustic guitar is in drop D, fingerpicked, which they used more in 1967 than in any other year.

The song reached listeners on November 22, 1968, as one track among many on The Beatles (The White Album). This song was the 6th of the 34 records they released in that year, and the 148th in the order they were recorded.