Polythene Pam

This odd little character sketch by Lennon will always be paired with Mean Mr. Mustard for multiple reasons.  They were both written in India in early 1968, they were both overlooked for the "White Album" even though demos for both were recorded before sessions for that album commenced, they were both revived and sequenced back-to-back in the big medley on side two of Abbey Road, and they were both uncharacteristic pieces for Lennon as a composer.

There were a few possible inspirations for Lennon's portrait of the kinky Polythene Pam according to Steve Turner in his book A Hard Day's Write.  The question for me is why would either an old polythene-eating fan from Liverpool or a woman from a one-night stand involving beat poet Royston Ellis even come to mind to Lennon as he was studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh?  And why would he then feel compelled to write such a song?

It was previewed at George Harrison's house in May of '68 when the Beatles met to record demos of the many songs they had written during their time in India.  John double-tracked both his acoustic guitar and his vocals, with a few variations from the finished lyrics we know.  As the song only consists of two verses, he repeats them one and a half times before concluding with an "Amen."

When McCartney came up with the idea for a medley of mostly unfinished song snippets for Abbey Road, Lennon offered up this tune.  They decided beforehand that this song would be linked to McCartney's She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, and that they would be recorded as one.  With John on guide vocal and acoustic guitar, George on electric guitar, Paul on bass and Ringo on drums, it required thirty-nine takes for the band to get the backing track perfected on July 25th, 1969.  Even then, John was unhappy with Ringo's drumming on the track, sarcastically remarking at one point that it sounded like Dave Clark.

Ringo continued working on it, however, with Paul's assistance, later telling John that he felt he finally got it right, but John brushed him off, saying that Ringo could do it as an overdub if he wanted, but they weren't going to play the entire track again.  This rather shoddy treatment of Ringo is related by engineer Geoff Emerick in his book Here, There and Everywhere.  In addition to Ringo's drum overdub, Paul re-recorded his bass part and John added his lead vocal line to the master take.

They returned to this section of the medley three days later, on July 28th.  Ringo added tambourine, maracas and cowbell, George overdubbed more electric guitar, and John re-recorded his lead vocal.  Paul also reportedly added acoustic and electric piano parts, but I am not able to pick these out in the mix.  The final session for the song, on July 30th, involved John, Paul and George adding backing vocals to both Polythene Pam and She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.

Despite John's treatment of Ringo at the initial session for the song, Geoff Emerick felt that the group was playing and sounding like the Beatles of old, and he said so to producer George Martin in the privacy of the control room.  Martin's response was, "You're right.  You'd never guess that the four of them actually can't stand each other."