[2][5] According to authors Ben Urish and Ken Bielen, the theme of the song is "the awe of finding true love unexpectedly".
[citation needed] Urish and Bielen praise the "long, slow knife" image one of Lennon's most poetic of emotional anguish.
[2][4] Author John Blaney describes the song's piano motif as "majestic" and compares the bass guitar line to those of Lennon's former bandmate Paul McCartney.
[10] The full recorded instrumental, with a guide vocal, was released as part of The Lost Lennon Tapes and on bootleg albums.
"[3] Mandinger and Easter call it a "truly beautiful love song" and feel it deserves more attention than it has received, and could have made a good follow up single to "Mind Games".
[5] Ultimate Classic Rock critic Nick DeRiso called "Out the Blue" the most underrated song on Mind Games, describing it as "a tale of once-devoted lovers now apart who somehow still seem destined to return to one another" and saying that it reveals how deep the loss of Ono was to Lennon while also foreshadowing their forthcoming reconciliation.
[14] Ultimate Classic Rock critic Stephen Lewis rated "Out the Blue" as Lennon's 6th greatest solo love song, saying that "Its ethereal acoustic opening verses, building to the emphatic chorus, combine to make it a perfect example of his state of mind in 1973.