As with songs such as "We Can Work It Out" and "I'm Looking Through You" from the same period, the lyrics address McCartney's troubled relationship with Jane Asher and her desire to pursue her career as a stage and film actress.

[3] In late 1965, while the Beatles were recording the album Rubber Soul in London, she had accepted an offer to appear in a stage production at the Bristol Old Vic theatre.

[8][9] The more biting tone of his lyrics marked a change from his typical love songs; in author Howard Sounes' interpretation, "You Won't See Me" presents McCartney as "bitter" and "the jealous boyfriend".

The tempo gradually slows down throughout the song, a point that music journalist Robert Fontenot attributes to McCartney leading the performance on piano, rather than Ringo Starr's timekeeping abilities on the drums.

[16] In author Jonathan Gould's description of the song, the tempo appears to "drag" due to McCartney's "hyperactive Motown-style bass line".

[7] Gould also comments on the effect achieved by John Lennon and George Harrison's wordless backing vocals over the verses, saying that their voices represent "a pair of deaf ears" by "embodying the girl's indifference" to McCartney's complaints.

[22][23] In his review for Record Mirror, Richard Green wrote: "It is possible to say that Lennon and McCartney are the great songwriting team of the day and that Beatles performances are spot-on, but this LP cannot support that statement."

[22] By contrast, Nikki Wine (aka Eden) of KRLA Beat found the album "unbelievably sensational" and described "You Won't See Me" as "One of the greatest arrangements and blending of melodies by the Beatles ... and it has to be one of the best cuts on the disc.

Because he virtually breathes melody, his bass lines begin to soar with inventive counterpoint to the band ..."[27] Ian MacDonald says the song, like "Nowhere Man", "needed something to lift it" and rues the group's use of the "irritating 'ooh-la-la-la' backing-vocal formula".

He concludes that, while it is "redeemed" by McCartney's fluid bass playing, "'You Won't See Me' soon founders under the weight of its own self-pity and expires long before struggling to the end of an unusually protracted fade.