#dear boy

I'm glad you brought this up, because I don't think I have ever discussed that song on my blog before. I've always thought that, regardless of whether Paul wrote Dear Boy about Linda's ex-husband, John, or a mix of both, the really revealing thing is that John apparently believed it was about him. To be honest, I've never cared that much about who Dear Boy was "really" about. What we should be analyzing is why the lyrics made John think they were aimed at him in the first place. That's what makes the song relevant. Peter Brown, who seemed to have a rather clear understanding of the dynamics of Paul and John's relationship during the breakup, also thought the song was about John:

"The cover featured a Linda McCartney photo of Paul taking a ram by the horns, with an interior photo of two beetles fucking each other, a not so oblique reference to the way Paul felt his pals were treating him. Lyrically, the references were more direct. When Paul sang, “Too Many People Preaching Practices,” John knew he was singing it to him, and that he was just a “silly boy(s) breaking their lucky breaks in two.” And it was to John to whom Paul sang, “Dear Boy, I hope you never know how much you missed [me].”

If we assume for a moment that Paul really wrote Dear Boy about John, then the song starts to look almost like an expanded version of the last verse of Too Many People:

"That was your last mistake. I find my love awake and waiting to be… now what can be done for you? She's waiting for me."

Because if you look at the lyrics of Dear Boy, it's expressing a very similar theme:

I guess you never knew, dear boy What you had found I guess you never knew, dear boy That she was just the cutest thing around I guess you never knew what you had found, dear boy I guess you never saw, dear boy That love was there And maybe when you look too hard, dear boy You never do become aware I guess you never did become aware, dear boy When I stepped in My heart was down and out But her love came through and brought me around Got me up and about I hope you never know, dear boy How much you missed And even when you fall in love, dear boy It won't be half as good as this I hope you never know how much you missed Dear boy, how much you missed, dear boy

If John thought those lyrics were directed at him, then what he would have heard is Paul saying: You threw away something valuable [our relationship]. You failed to recognize the love that was there. I was hurt by it, but I've found someone new (to replace you), who transformed my life, and what I have now is better than anything you'll ever find elsewhere. Those are pretty heavy implications. Why would a former bandmate—or even a former best friend—write a song essentially bragging about his new romantic relationship and directing it at another man, telling him that he failed to recognize what they had and is now missing out on it? That kind of sentiment makes far more sense if the person being addressed had previously occupied an unusually important place in his life—one that, in many respects, had been replaced by the role now filled by his wife. Again, that's almost exactly the sentiment expressed in the final verse of Too Many People.

Now, there are alternative, more "platonic" explanations for John thinking the song was about him. One possibility is that John simply thought Paul was boasting that his relationship with Linda was stronger and much better than John's relationship with Yoko. Another theory that I've seen in some biographies is that the "she" in the song refers metaphorically to the Beatles, and that John had failed to appreciate what he had in the group. I don't personally find the Beatles interpretation very convincing, but I do think the first explanation has merit. I can perfectly imagine John interpreting the line "And even when you fall in love, dear boy, it won't be half as good as this" that way, and I actually think that's how he took it. The only thing is that the rest of the song sounds much more personal than that, and much more than just petty bragging or competitiveness. You have lines saying, "I guess you never knew what you had found", "I guess you never saw that love was there...I guess you never did become aware." From John's perspective, those lines would seem to describe him overlooking or discarding their relationship, which contained genuine love, and that he never fully recognized its value. And that Paul is then saying that, although he was devastated at the time ("When I stepped in, my heart was down and out"), he has recovered because Linda is now there for him. Even if you reject any romantic interpretation of John and Paul's relationship, that's still a remarkably loaded thing to say to a friend. It's not every day that you see someone use their current romantic relationship as a weapon in a song aimed at a former "friend", no matter how close they were. And this is where the broader context matters. You can't really look at this in isolation. There are countless comments from insiders, friends, and from John and Paul themselves describing their relationship in terms usually associated with romantic partnerships: comparisons to marriage, jealousy over new partners, and their basically replacing each other with Yoko and Linda. We have Paul saying that John couldn't continue seeing him in the same way after falling in love with Yoko because he was "like another girlfriend, almost" and that John needed to put him away in order to start a new relationship, and we have John saying he had been "riding on a boat called Paul" before moving onto a "boat called Yoko," and so on.

Johhn in “How Do You Sleep?”: “well since you left i haven’t missed you at all. you really did die to me. also i think it's super weird that you used to get turned on by your mom. i think you wrote a very good song btw, but that’s all. also I think you’re really pretty, but that’s like, not the point.”

Paul in “Dear friend”: “john, we're literally married and i'm in love with you. why are you mad at me wtf, that song was so mean, are you a fool or do you mean all that stuff?”