Mean Mr. Mustard- John or Paul? | Fab forum

Nope, Mean Mr. Mustard was definitely John. It was written in India, and demoed for The White Album (included on Anthology 3).

Also, he just plain had a bad memory about certain things – in that 1970 Wenner interview, he apparently couldn't remember Revolver's title, or whether it came before or after Rubber Soul. He may have just forgot about MMM.

Ben Ramon said
Mean Mr Mustard is certainly interesting in that it's a rare example of a John song that could easily have been Paul's. The whimsical characters and randomness of lines like "keeps a ten bob note up his nose" are pure Paul.

I think both this and Polythene Pam could never have been written by Paul. The characters are quite scuzzy, and Paul didn't really write scuzzy. Like you said, Paul did whimsical. Even his mass murderer, Maxwell, was whimsical. MMM and PP are, to my mind, the purest expression of John, the author of In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, in his songwriting. They are grotesques straight out of the pages of those books. With a connection straight back to the docks and Maggie Mae.

As to the comments about the 1970 Rolling Stone interview that have been made here, while I agree with lots of what's been said, the context always have to be remembered. It was given in the early days of what would be a prolonged and bloody divorce. The 1980 Rolling Stone interview would be very different. And his memory during the 1970? I was watching George talking about 1967 today, and he commented that it lasted about 50 years. It's easy to remember memorable things from days when not much is happening, but I know I sometimes get things mixed-up and wrong when thinking back on the more intense days of my life. Times that by being The Beatles and living in that maelstrom that engulfed them.