The first verse of "Beautiful Boys" is directed at Ono and Lennon's young son Sean, culminating in the line "don't be afraid to cry.

[1] Beatle biographer John Blaney also sees this song as a companion to "Woman" stating that "Ono's analysis of her relationship with Lennon was insightful and honest.

[4] Tom Sowa of The Spokesman-Review described the song as a "tender, melancholic comment with a light musical touch.

[6] New Musical Express critics Roy Carr and Tony Tyler describe "Beautiful Boys" as "an eerie lament which is not so much a gloomy feminist assessment as an instinctive matriarch's perception of 'Man-as-child.

"[9] Assistant engineer Jon Smith stated that they incorporated sound effects from Star Wars battles into the song.

[9] Originally they did so by playing the movie soundtrack through noise gates that were triggered to turn on when drummer Andy Newmark hit his tom-toms, thus timing the sound effects to the drums.

[9] Ono thought this ruined the mood of the song and so they simply left the sound effects low in the mix without timing them to the drums.