| Title: | Sun King / Mean Mr Mustard |  |
| Credits: | John Lennon - Paul McCartney |
| Recorded: | 24th, 25th July, Abbey Road 2; 29th July 1969, Abbey Road 3 |
| Line-up: | Lennon multi-tracked vocal, lead guitar, maracas;
McCartney harmony vocals, bass, harmonium, piano, tape-loops;
Harrison lead guitar; Starr drums, bongos, Tamborine;
George Martin Lowry organ |
| Producer: | George Martin |
| Engineers: | Glyn Johns/ Phil McDonald |
| Location: | Abbey Road - tracks 10/ 11
Anthology 3 - track 4, disc 1 (Mean Mr Mustard) |
| UK Release: | 26th September 1969 (LP: Abbey Road) |
| US Release: | 1st October 1969 (LP: Abbey Road) |
Recorded in one sequence, these two Lennon scraps are at best half-songs and would have been unusable without the excuse of the Long Medley. A desultory mood-piece with a mock-Mediterranean postscript. The Beatles play this kitsch with a blend of stylishness (the main guitar phrase, adapted from Fleetwood Mac's 1969 hit 'Albatross') and tongue-in-cheek bad taste ( a return of the brylcreemed night-club organist from Mr Moonlight). Tracked in four- and five-part harmony, Lennon bridges the gap between his keys with a Beach Boys echo-fade G eleventh.
Sun King segues from the sun-kissed slumber of Torremolinos to the livelier and considerably more sordid Mean Mr Mustard, a joke perpetrated in a fit of boredom during The Beatles' spring 1968 sojourn at Rishikesh (1). It comes as a shock, in the bland sunshine of Abbey Road, to be confronted with this tongue-poking throwback to Sgt. Pepper, complete with fairground waltz and cartoon grotesquery. Its melodic phrases spilling across bar-lines delineated by McCartney's irascible fuzz toned bass, Mean Mr Mustard lasts a minute, before giving way to: Polythene Pam / She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.
(1) The Esher demo of May 1968 (Anthology 3 - see Esher recordings) includes a vague chorus, not used in the final recording. Since, at this stage, the song wasn't linked to Polythene Pam, Mr Mustard's sister was named Shirley (possibly after Shirley Evans, the accordionist in Magical Mystery Tour).