Mean Mr. Mustard

"Mean Mr. Mustard" is a song written by John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and performed by The Beatles on their album, Abbey Road. The Abbey Road version was recorded with "Sun King" in one continuous piece.

Composition

The song was written in India. Lennon said that the song was inspired by a newspaper story about a miser who hid his cash wherever he could so he can stop people from making him spend it. On reflection, he didn't think highly of the composition, describing it in Anthology as "a bit of crap I wrote in India."

A demo version of the song was recorded in May 1968 at Kinfauns, George Harrison's home in Esher, and appears on Anthology 3. In that version, Mustard's sister is named Shirley. Lennon changed it to Pam when he saw the ochance to ease the segue into the song "Polythene Pam", which is after "Mean Mr. Mustard" on the album. According to Lennon, "In 'Mean Mr. Mustard', I said 'his sister Pam'—originally it was 'his sister Shirley' in the lyric. I changed it to Pam to make it sound like it had something to do with it." Additionally, the original version of the song was a quieter acoustic rendition and was over 4 minutes in length.

Other versions

The version in the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie was performed by Mean Mr. Mustard (played by Frankie Howerd) and his evil robot companions named the Computerettes. As with the performance of "She's Leaving Home" also in the movie, the computerized singing of the Computerettes was performed by the Bee Gees.

Personnel

John Lennon – lead and harmony vocals, piano, maracas
Paul McCartney – harmony vocals, fuzz bass
George Harrison – lead guitar
Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine

References

General






Category:The Beatles songs
Category:1969 songs