My Mummy's Dead
| "My Mummy's Dead" | ||||
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1972 Mexican EP
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| Song by John Lennon from the album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band | ||||
| Released | 11 December 1970 | |||
| Recorded | Summer 1970 House on Nimes Road in Bel Air, California |
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| Genre | Folk | |||
| Length | 0:49 | |||
| Label | Apple Records | |||
| Writer(s) | John Lennon | |||
| Producer(s) | John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector | |||
| John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band track listing | ||||
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| 11 tracks |
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"My Mummy's Dead" is the closing song on the album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band by John Lennon. It was also released on a Mexican EP that also contained "Mother", "Isolation" and "Look at Me."
It is one of the songs Lennon wrote concerning his mother, along with "Julia" and "Mother". The song is partially set to the tune of the English nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice." It is in the key of C sharp major. It is performed on a solo acoustic guitar and played back through a small speaker.
Unlike the primal screams on "Mother," the opening song on Plastic Ono Band, "My Mummy's Dead" ends the album with John singing without emotion with a monotone delivery. Author John Blaney suggests that Lennon's delivery "evokes a sense of Lennon's long-held emptiness." Music critic Johnny Rogan finds that the song "captures the menace of childhood fears through adult remembrance in a most disturbing fashion." Rock journalist Paul Du Noyer claims that the "blankness of John's delivery" makes the song one of the scariest and most chilling of Lennon's songs, despite being one of the simplest. Lennon himself stated that the plain, short, childlike lyrics are due to him trying to write the song as a form of haiku.
Two takes of "My Mummy's Dead" were recorded in Bel Air, California, during the summer of 1970 as part of the demo tapes Lennon made in preparation for Plastic Ono Band. The first take was adapted for use on Plastic Ono Band. Unlike the other Plastic Ono Band songs on the demos, "My Mummy's Dead" was not rerecorded for the album. The second take was not processed and appeared on bootleg albums such as The Dream Is Over. The second take version was edited with the version released on Plastic Ono Band to produce a more complete version of the song, which aired on The Lost Lennon Tapes.
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Wikipedia