A fond message for Prudence

Dear Prudence is a song written by John Lennon and was released by the Beatles as the second track

on their 1968 double-disc album titled The White Album. The song was written while the Beatles were in India to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It talks about Mia Farrow’s sister Prudence Farrow who was with them. Apparently, Farrow became so serious about her meditation that she “turned into a near recluse” and “rarely came out” of her cottage. Lennon and George Harrison were entrusted with the task of coaxing her out of the room where she spent hours at end, infatuated with meditation. They were asked to get her to come out more often to socialize. “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” Lennon said in an interview.

Consequently, Lennon wrote the song Dear Prudence. In the song Lennon asks Farrow to “open up your eyes” and “see the sunny skies” reminding her that she is “part of everything”. The song was said to be “a simple plea to a friend to ‘snap out of it’.” Farrow herself said in a later interview, “I would always rush straight back to my room after lectures and meals so I could meditate. John, George and Paul would all want to sit around jamming and having a good time and I’d be flying into my room. They were all serious about what they were doing, but they just weren’t as fanatical as me”. She didn’t hear the song until it came out on the White Album. Nonetheless, she is known to have said, “I was flattered. It was a beautiful thing to have done”.