Main Writer: Lennon
Recorded: August 28-30, 1968
Released: November 25, 1968
Not released as a single

When the Beatles arrived in India to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the actress Mia Farrow and her 20-year-old sister, Prudence, were already there. Prudence got so deeply into meditation that she refused to come out of her hut. "We saw her twice in the two weeks I was there," Starr recalled. "Everyone would be banging on the door: 'Are you still alive?'" As Lennon put it, Prudence "was trying to reach God quicker than anybody else. That was the competition in Maharishi's camp: Who was going to get cosmic first?"

Lennon turned the incident into "Dear Prudence," which he wrote in India on acoustic guitar, as a gentle invitation to "come out to play." With its fingerpicking folk-guitar style — taught to Lennon by Donovan, who spent time with the Beatles in Rishikesh — and wistful nursery-rhyme lyrics, the song became one of the band's most poignant evocations of childhood. It was recorded after Starr had stormed out of the studio and briefly quit the band, so McCartney plays drums on it, as well as bass, piano and flügelhorn.

Appears On: The Beatles

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