[4] It describes the events of the couple's wedding, in March 1969, and highly publicised honeymoon activities, including their "Bed-In" at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel and their demonstration of "bagism".

"[16][17] Music critic Richie Unterberger comments on the historical significance of the seven-hour session since it produced "probably some of the final tapes of Lennon and McCartney working closely together, alone".

[18] In Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn's description, the session tapes challenge the typical reports of Lennon and McCartney's relationship becoming acrimonious in 1969, as the pair's "great talent, humour, musical understanding and togetherness shone through from start to finish".

[11] Mark Hertsgaard of The New Yorker, the only other writer known to have heard the tapes, attended a private listening session in London with Lewisohn in January 1994.

Soon afterwards, Hertsgaard wrote that Lewisohn had again enthused about Lennon and McCartney's camaraderie and "musical kinship", but he himself detected "a forced, polite quality to their joking, and none of the enthusiastic electricity heard during earlier Beatles sessions ...

[23] In his NME interview at this time, Lennon said that although the story had already emerged that Harrison and Starr did not play on the song, he would not have chosen to publicise this, adding, "It doesn't mean anything, it just so happened that there were only us two there.

According to author Bruce Spizer, Lennon's bandmates appear uncomfortable ceding the spotlight to Ono and in better humour in the shot used for "Old Brown Shoe", on the reverse of the sleeve.

[24][nb 2] The single was accompanied by two promotional clips assembled from footage of some of Lennon and Ono's public activities – all of which the couple routinely filmed – between July 1968 and April 1969.

When shown on the Australian TV show Rage long afterwards, in black and white, this version had the word "Christ" bleeped out in the choruses with an on-screen starburst effect.

This film is made up of footage from considerably more events, showing Lennon and Ono in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Vienna, among other locations; for this reason, according to author John Winn, it "illustrates the lyrics much more effectively" than the first clip.

[28] Cash Box said that "Mixed programmer reaction [to the U.S. single] is the result of 'objectionable' lyrics, but musically the side is an exciting old-Elvis flavored track with other 50's touches.

[citation needed] Their testy exchange, which included Capp referring to Ono as "Madame Nhu", later appeared in the 1988 documentary film Imagine: John Lennon.