 Music critic Richie Unterberger singles out "I'm a Loser" as "one of the very first Beatles compositions with lyrics addressing more serious points than young love".Rowley considered it to be an "obvious copy of Bob Dylan", as where Lennon refers to the listener as a "friend", Dylan does the same on "Blowin' in the Wind".He also said its intention was to "openly subvert the simple true love themes of their earlier work".