Dear Boy

Paul McCartney wrote "Dear Boy" about how lucky he felt to have Linda as his wife, but he also had her ex-husband, Joseph Melville See Jr., in mind. He told Mojo in 2001: "'I guess you never knew what you had missed.' I never told him that, which was lucky, because he's since committed suicide. And it was a comment about him, 'cause I did think, 'Gosh, you know, she's so amazing, I suppose you didn't get it.'"

Linda, who provided backing vocals on Let It Be," sang counterpoint on this. McCartney recalled in the liner notes for Ram's 2012 reissue: "On something like 'Dear Boy,' which was more complex – on 'Let It Be' it was basically one high note – on this there were more melodic lines so it was quite complex to do, but I could see that she could do it. So we just took the time. I put my part on, and then encouraged Linda to just take it easy, relax, put a good performance in, which she did. And years later, some of my really cool, professional friends who knew what was good and what wasn't, would listen to those harmonies and point them out and say, 'Those are really great harmonies.' I remember Elton John commenting on that, and I remember Michael Jackson commenting on that."

This is part of McCartney's second solo album, Ram, which took a bashing from critics. The NME review called it "an excursion into almost unrelieved tedium." Of course, he was being leveled against The Beatles, which isn't a fair standard. The album gained more fans in retrospect, and was re-released in 2012.