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Mean Mr. Mustard - Quiz
Contributed by: Handley
  • 1. Which band released the song 'Mean Mr. Mustard'?
A) The Beatles
B) Led Zeppelin
C) The Rolling Stones
D) The Who
  • 2. On which studio album was 'Mean Mr. Mustard' released?
A) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
B) White Album
C) Abbey Road
D) Let It Be
  • 3. In what year was the album Abbey Road released?
A) 1970
B) 1968
C) 1969
D) 1967
  • 4. Who wrote the song 'Mean Mr. Mustard'?
A) Paul McCartney
B) Ringo Starr
C) John Lennon
D) George Harrison
  • 5. What track number is 'Mean Mr. Mustard' on the album's climactic medley?
A) First
B) Fourth
C) Second
D) Third
  • 6. For which album was 'Mean Mr. Mustard' originally supposed to be recorded?
A) Rubber Soul
B) Revolver
C) The White Album
D) Abbey Road
  • 7. In what year was the White Album released?
A) 1969
B) 1968
C) 1967
D) 1966
  • 8. What alternative name was given to the medley on Abbey Road?
A) The Abbey Symphony
B) The Big Suite
C) The Final Piece
D) The Long One
  • 9. How did John Lennon view his contributions to the medley?
A) As his finest work
B) With great pride
C) With frigidness
D) With indifference
  • 10. What phrase did John Lennon use to describe 'Mean Mr. Mustard' and another medley piece?
A) Pure pop symphonies
B) Bits of crap I wrote in India
C) The best songs of my career
D) Unfinished masterpieces of rock
  • 11. When did the band record 'Mean Mr. Mustard'?
A) Late July 1969
B) Early February 1968
C) Late December 1968
D) Mid September 1969
  • 12. Which song comes directly before 'Mean Mr. Mustard' in the Long One?
A) Maxwell's Silver Hammer
B) Sun King
C) Her Majesty
D) Polythene Pam
  • 13. In which town was 'Mean Mr. Mustard' written?
A) New Delhi
B) Liverpool
C) Rishikesh
D) London
  • 14. What is Rishikesh known as for Hindus?
A) A coastal resort
B) A capital city
C) A pilgrimage town
D) An industrial hub
  • 15. Why did the Beatles travel to Rishikesh in February 1968?
A) To practice Transcendental Meditation
B) To shoot a film
C) To go on a vacation
D) To record an album
  • 16. Whose monastery did the Beatles stay at in Rishikesh?
A) Swami Vivekananda's
B) Maharashi Mahesh Yogi's
C) The Dalai Lama's
D) Mahatma Gandhi's
  • 17. What inspired John Lennon to write 'Mean Mr. Mustard'?
A) A childhood memory in Liverpool
B) A book about a sailor
C) A dream he had in India
D) A newspaper story about a miser
  • 18. What was the headline of the newspaper article from the Daily Record on 7 June 1967?
A) Hiding Cash in London
B) The Miser of Enfield
C) The Man with the 10-Shilling Note
D) A Mean Husband Shaved in the Dark
  • 19. What was the name of the man featured in the Daily Record article?
A) John Mustard
B) Arthur Mustard
C) Mean Mr. Mustard
D) William Mustard
  • 20. Where did the man featured in the newspaper article live?
A) Liverpool, England
B) Manchester, England
C) Enfield, London
D) Rishikesh, India
  • 21. In what interview did Lennon discuss hiding £5 notes?
A) 1980 Playboy interview
B) 1969 Rolling Stone interview
C) 1974 NME interview
D) 1971 Melody Maker interview
  • 22. What substance did Lennon clarify the song had nothing to do with?
A) Heroin
B) Marijuana
C) LSD
D) Cocaine
  • 23. What was the companion song to 'Mean Mr. Mustard' mentioned by Lennon?
A) Golden Slumbers
B) Polythene Pam
C) Maxwell's Silver Hammer
D) Sun King
  • 24. How did Lennon introduce 'Mean Mr. Mustard' in the Playboy interview?
A) As a pop masterpiece
B) As an unfinished joke
C) As a piece of garbage
D) As a brilliant rock song
  • 25. What did Paul McCartney want Abbey Road to be?
A) A pure rock and roll album
B) A pop symphony/opera
C) A collection of folk tunes
D) A live concert recording
  • 26. How was the Abbey Road album split?
A) Three ways
B) It was not split
C) Two ways
D) Four ways
  • 27. What did the first side of Abbey Road contain?
A) Individual songs
B) A sixteen-minute medley
C) Only acoustic tracks
D) Live recordings
  • 28. What did most of the second side of Abbey Road contain?
A) A sixteen-minute medley
B) Instrumental jams
C) Individual pop hits
D) A continuous acoustic set
  • 29. Whose idea was the medley on Abbey Road?
A) Harrison's
B) George Martin's
C) McCartney's
D) Lennon's
  • 30. Who claimed a share of credit in the creation of the medley wanting the group to think symphonically?
A) Hunter Davies
B) George Martin
C) Neil Aspinall
D) Chris Ingham
  • 31. What did George Martin advise the group to do musically?
A) Play faster rock
B) Keep it simple
C) Focus on acoustic guitars
D) Think symphonically
  • 32. How are the medley's short songs connected?
A) By spoken word introductions
B) By random chance
C) By being recorded live together
D) By thematic or tonal coherence
  • 33. How does Beatles biographer Hunter Davies coldly describe the medley?
A) As a brilliant symphonic masterpiece
B) As a long string of unfinished scraps
C) As a revolutionary rock opera
D) As the finest work of the 1960s
  • 34. What did Neil Aspinall suggest that prompted Lennon to snap back?
A) A world tour after the album
B) A longer medley on Abbey Road
C) A reprise of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
D) An acoustic version of Mustard
  • 35. What was Lennon's response to Neil Aspinall's suggestion about Sgt. Pepper?
A) Let us do it tomorrow
B) Ask Paul instead
C) That is a brilliant idea
D) No one likes a smart-arse, Neil
  • 36. How did Lennon describe how his three contributions to the medley were arranged?
A) Juggled about until it made vague sense
B) Played in exact chronological order
C) Carefully planned out over months
D) Arranged by George Martin in a studio
  • 37. What did author Chris Ingham say Lennon would have considered his three medley contributions?
A) Garbage
B) Masterpieces
C) Deep poetry
D) Pop classics
  • 38. What do some critics hold about the three Lennon numbers in the medley?
A) They are the best songs on the album
B) They ruined the entire record
C) They should have been released as singles
D) They are the medley's weakest patch
  • 39. Despite some criticisms, what does Chris Ingham think of the Lennon numbers?
A) They are boring and repetitive
B) They lack any character
C) They are hugely entertaining musically
D) They are too experimental
  • 40. Which author praises Polythene Pam's wicked humor?
A) Mark Hertsgaard
B) Hunter Davies
C) Ian Womack
D) Nicholas Schaffner
  • 41. Which publication agrees that Lennon contributed some of the medley's most eccentric parts?
A) Melody Maker
B) Rolling Stone
C) Daily Record
D) Playboy
  • 42. Who is the author that writes about the large cast of whimsical characters on Abbey Road?
A) Hunter Davies
B) Chris Ingham
C) Nicholas Schaffner
D) Mark Hertsgaard
  • 43. According to Nicholas Schaffner, what does Mean Mr. Mustard scream obscenities at?
A) A police officer
B) His sister Pam
C) The Maharishi
D) Her Majesty
  • 44. How is Mean Mr. Mustard described regarding a note in the song's lyrics according to Schaffner?
A) With the 10-shilling note up his nose
B) With a magic hammer in his hand
C) With a newspaper under his arm
D) With a £5 note in his pocket
  • 45. How is Mustard's sister Pam described by Schaffner?
A) As a queen living in London
B) As a wealthy miser hiding cash
C) As a monk meditating in India
D) As a transvestite resplendent in a polythene bag
  • 46. What was Mustard's sister named in a May 1968 demo?
A) Daisy
B) Shirley
C) Mary
D) Pam
  • 47. Why did Lennon change Mustard's sister's name from Shirley to Pam?
A) To make it sound like it had something to do with Polythene Pam
B) At the request of Paul McCartney
C) Based on a real person in India
D) Because he preferred the name Pam
  • 48. How did Lennon want to record his medley songs?
A) Over several months in different studios
B) Separately as individual singles
C) At one go, without interruption
D) Acoustically with a live audience
  • 49. Who writes that recording the medley songs at one go served the purposes of the musical suite and unfolding character studies?
A) Ingham
B) Davies
C) Womack
D) Schaffner
  • 50. Who told sound engineer John Kurlander to scrap 'Her Majesty'?
A) George Harrison
B) Ringo Starr
C) Paul McCartney
D) John Lennon
  • 51. What chord does 'Pam' open with that is also common to 'Mustard'?
A) A D major chord
B) An E major chord
C) A G major chord
D) A C major chord
  • 52. What key is 'Mustard' written in?
A) D major
B) A major
C) E major
D) G major
  • 53. What time signature is 'Mustard' in throughout?
A) 44 time
B) 68 time
C) 128 time
D) 34 time
  • 54. What does 'Pam' rely on to form a cadence?
A) The subdominant
B) The tonic
C) The dominant
D) A flat seventh chord
  • 55. How many days after the UK release was 'Mustard' released in the US?
A) Five days later
B) One month later
C) Two weeks later
D) Ten days later
  • 56. What did The Age review call 'Mustard' a month after its release?
A) A courageous masterpiece
B) A derisive ditty
C) A mid-tempo beater
D) An incredible reinvention
  • 57. Who described 'Mustard' as 'a mid-tempo beater with more in the words than in the music'?
A) Alan Smith
B) John Kurlander
C) Paul McGuinness
D) Booker T. Jones
  • 58. Which band covered 'Mean Mr. Mustard' on their 1970 album McLemore Avenue?
A) The Who
B) Booker T. & the M.G.'s
C) Cornershop
D) The Rolling Stones
  • 59. Who conceived the mostly instrumental reinvention of Abbey Road on McLemore Avenue?
A) John Kurlander
B) Paul McGuinness
C) Alan Smith
D) Booker T. Jones
  • 60. Which indie rock band featured 'Mustard' in a medley with 'Polythene Pam' on Abbey Road Now!?
A) The Beatles
B) Cornershop
C) The Kinfauns
D) Booker T. & the M.G.'s
  • 61. Who chose Cornershop's recording as the best cover of both 'Mustard' and 'Pam'?
A) Booker T. Jones
B) Alan Smith
C) John Kurlander
D) Paul McGuinness
  • 62. Which instruments did Ringo Starr play on the track according to the personnel list?
A) Lead guitar and tambourine
B) Rhythm guitar and piano
C) Fuzz bass and harmony vocals
D) Drums, tambourine, and maracas
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