John’s romantic insecurities are beginning to become a recurring theme in his lyrics as of mid 1964, as evidenced in “I’ll Cry Instead” and “If I Fell.” These insecurities remained evident in his work throughout the Beatle years, sometimes in a less descriptive way as in “Don’t Let Me Down” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” toward the end of the group’s career.Nonetheless, this time around, the subject in “I’ll Be Back” centers around his girl breaking his heart, resulting in his leaving for a short time only to return and have it happen again. “I love you so, I’m the one who wants you,” John pleads apparently to no avail. He even confesses his motives in leaving, explaining “I thought that you would realize that if I ran away from you, that you would want me too.” His latest return resulted in what he sarcastically refers to as a “big surprise,” which is that she broke his heart again.Even so, the singer is determined to attempt this plan yet another time, saying “I wanna go” but “you know I hate to leave you” since he has apparently become dependent on her love. This hopeless ambivalence is nicely pictured by the unsettling major/minor chord changes as the song fades away, depicting how the singer will probably keep repeating this pattern with the hopes that she’ll finally stay true to him. Lennon himself continues this theme with “Girl” in 1965: “She promises the earth to me and I believe her, after all this time, I don’t know why.”
