"Mean Mr. Mustard" is a song by English rock band the Beatles, released on their 1969 studio album Abbey Road. Written by John Lennon, it is the third track of the album's climactic medley.

The song was to be recorded for the Beatles' 1968 White Album but instead made Abbey Road, a contribution of Lennon's to the medley (also dubbed the Long One) that he viewed with frigidness. In fact, he later called the song, along with another of his medley pieces, "bits of crap I wrote in India". The band recorded "Mustard" in late July 1969 as a continuous piece with "Sun King", which comes before in the Long One.

Background The song John Lennon wrote "Mean Mr. Mustard" in Rishikesh,; a municipal corporation in India. The Beatles had traveled there in February of 1968 to stay at the Maharashi Mahesh Yogi's monastery and practice Transcendental Meditation.; ; The few weeks they spent in Rishikesh contributed to their most plentiful output of songs yet, including many of the tracks that formed The Beatles (popularly dubbed the White Album).few weeks: see ; most plentiful output: ; White Album: ;

Lennon said that it was inspired by a newspaper story about a miser who concealed his cash wherever he could in order to prevent people from forcing him to spend it. A newspaper article from the 7 June 1967 Daily Record with the headline "A Mean Husband Shaved in the Dark" features a man called John Mustard, who lived in Enfield, London. In a 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said: "I’d read somewhere in the paper about this mean guy who was hiding £5 notes, not up his nose but somewhere else, and so I wrote about him." He adds: "No, it had nothing to do with cocaine." On reflection, Lennon called the song and its companion "Polythene Pam" "only finished bits of crap I wrote in India", and he introduced it in the Playboy interview as "a piece of garbage".

The Abbey Road medley

When working on Abbey Road, the Beatles did not know that their time as a band was fast moving towards divorce.; Lennon originally wanted a rock and roll album, and McCartney, a pop symphony/opera, so the album was split two ways: the first side contained individual songs, and most the second was a sixteen-minute medley. The idea for the medley was McCartney's, and the group's producer George Martin claimed his share of credit in its creation in wanting "to get John and Paul to think more seriously about their music".idea was McCartney's: ; Martin's influence: He had long been advising the group to "think symphonically", to use motifs and complex structures and forms. Thus, the medley's songs, short "half" songs, are connected in some way by thematic or tonal coherence and link together through segues and fades.; ;

The Beatles biographer Hunter Davies coldly describes the medley as a long string of "short pieces that ... were unfinished, hardly worked on, half realised scraps that got melded together, running into each other, with the odd reprise, to fill up the end of the album", although he follows the narrative that the Beatles knew Abbey Road would be their last album. Lennon was less eager about the Long One, both because it was McCartney's idea and because he preferred unvarnished rock and roll free from intricate album structures and other grand touches.; ; Such was his preferrence that when Neil Aspinall suggested Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band include a reprise of the title song, Lennon told him: "No one likes a smart-arse, Neil." He said that his three contributions to the medley, "Sun King", "Mustard", and "Polythene Pam", were "juggled ... about until it made vague sense"; and according to the author Chris Ingham, he would have considered them "garbage". Some critics hold that the three Lennon numbers are the medley's weakest patch. In spite of this, Ingham, one of these critics, thinks they are "hugely entertaining musically" with their peculiar characters, and Mark Hertsgaard, another, praises "Pam"'s "wicked humor".; Rolling Stone agrees: "He contributed some of its most eccentric parts, like the sneering 'Mean Mr. Mustard' and the quick, funky put-down 'Polythene Pam.'"

The author Nicholas Schaffner writes: "Like all their best albums, Abbey Road is inhabited by a large cast of whimsical characters—such as Maxwell, who cheerfully bumps off all and sundry with a magic hammer; Mean Mr. Mustard with the 10-shilling note up his nose, who gets his kicks out of screaming obscenities at Her Majesty; and his transvestite sister Pam, resplendent in a polythene bag." As far back as in May 1968 demo, Mustard's sister was named Shirley, but Lennon later changed it to Pam "to make it sound like it had something to do with it" and hence better segue into "Polythene Pam".; ; Lennon wanted to record his medley songs at one go, without interruption; as Womack writes, "In so doing, they would not only serve the purposes of the musical suite but also share in the unfolding character studies that the medley was beginning to accrue."

Recording and place on Abbey Road

"Pam" was first intended to be recorded for the White Album.

For a time, the medley was intended to run with "Her Majesty" flanked by "Mustard" and "Pam".; However, while the Abbey Road tracks were being remixed, on 30 July, McCartney deemed "Her Majesty" unfit for the Long One and told the sound engineer John Kurlander to scrap it.; ; Since Kurlander was under orders not to throw out any Beatles recording, he inserted it at the end of Abbey Road after "The End".; His edit was only rough.; ; Due to this change in sequencing, "Pam" opens with "Her Majesty"'s final chord, and the end of "Mustard" is covered by the opening chords of "Pam", though the transition between them remains rather plane since "Pam" opens with a D major chord common to "Mustard"."Her Majesty": ; ; "Mustard": ; transition between "Mustard" and "Pam": These errors were never fixed; when Kurlander tried doing so on 30 July, McCartney told him: "Never mind, it's only a rough mix, it doesn't matter."

Composition Style and music "Mustard" is in the key of E major and in time throughout.

"Mustard" is harmonically similar to "Pam", written in the same key and using the same chords, barring G major in the latter. However, the progressions differ. In "Mustard", the melody starts with the tonic and leads to the subdominant before returning to the tonic, while in "Pam", the melody lines culminate in the tonic. Furthermore, the dominant's role in "Mustard" is its usual one, to form a complete cadence, but "Pam" relies on a flat seventh chord to form a cadence, as the dominant serves only a supporting role in the melody.

Release and reception Apple Records released "Mustard" on 26 September 1969 in the UK and five days later in the US, as part of Abbey Road.; ; Apple Records: The Kinfauns demo was later issued on Anthology 3 and the 2018 expanded edition of the White Album.Anthology: ; White Album: The 2019 deluxe reissue of Abbey Road featured take 20 of "Mustard". The complete version of "Mustard" (with its original clean ending) can be heard on The Beatles: Rock Band video game, as well as Abbey Roads 2019 Super Deluxe Edition.

The Age, reviewing Abbey Road a month after release, calls "Mustard" a "derisive ditty". In another contemporary review of the album, NMEs Alan Smith describes it as "a mid-tempo beater with more in the words than in the music".

Cover versions Booker T. & the M.G.'s covered "Mean Mr. Mustard" and many other Abbey Road tracks on their 1970 album McLemore Avenue. Their album was a mostly instrumental reinvention of the Beatles' work, conceived by Booker T. Jones after he heard it for the first time: "... I thought it was incredibly courageous of The Beatles to drop their format and move out musically like they did. To push the limit like that and reinvent themselves when they had no need to do that. ... The music was just incredible so I felt I needed to pay tribute to it." When Mojo magazine released an album of Abbey Road covers, Abbey Road Now!, to commemorate the album's fortieth anniversary, "Mustard" featured in a medley with "Polythene Pam" by the indie rock band Cornershop. The music journalist Paul McGuinness chose this recording as the best cover of both "Mustard" and "Pam".

Personnel According to the Abbey Road 50th anniversary booklet: John Lennon – lead and harmony vocals, rhythm guitar, piano Paul McCartney – harmony vocals, fuzz bass George Harrison – lead guitar Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine, maracas

References

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Citations

Bibliography Books and academic sources

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Magazines and websites

External links

The "Polythene Pam" demo at Kinfauns, May 1968, as heard on the White Album 50th anniversary release

The Beatles Bible entry on "Mean Mr. Mustard" A 2019 Daily Record article discussing the song's background