Deciphering The Beatles ..............Seven................I Am The Walrus

[gryphon]

Deciphering The Beatles................Six..................I Am The Walrus
Lyrics
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
See how they fly, I'm crying

Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you've been a naughty boy
You let your face grow long

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Mr. City policeman sitting
Pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run, I'm crying

I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying

Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
You let your knickers down

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Sitting in an English garden
Waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan
From standing in the English rain

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob
G-goo goo g' joob

Expert, texpert choking smokers
Don't you think the joker laughs at you?
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide, I'm crying

Climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking
Edgar Allan Poe

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob
G-goo goo g' joob
Goo goo g' goo
G-goo goo g' joob goo

Juba juba juba
Juba juba juba
Juba juba, juba juba
Juba juba

This is one of the most obscure Beatle songs to decipher....It is a Lennon lyric and at the time of writing Lennon’s life was complex....................He was divorcing his first wife Cynthia , he was involved to a greater or lesser degree with Yoko...................He was into avant guard art and music and he was using a great deal of illegal mind changing drugs..............

So lets me see what I can make of it?????
The Title ........”I Am The Walrus”..................AS I have pointed out before Jon loved Lewis Carol and in Alice Through The Looking Glass is a poem “ The Walrus and The Carpenter “ ............I think it is fair to say that this is the source..................
Now, who was the Walrus also might shed light on the meaning?
On the cover of the Magical Mystery Tour EP we get a few clues:

The Title is “I Am The Walrus”..............Oh no your not said Nicola...............( Nicola is a child featured in the Magical Mystery Tour film ................so I guess that the idea of Nursery Rhymes and children’s stories will play some part.......................
In Glass Onion John plays around ................The lyrics say “ The Walrus Was Paul!” good thinking John but later on John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band we get.....................I was The Walrus ............But Now I’m John ................( “God “ by John Lennon )
So ,The Walrus was John..................................
On The Walrus and The Carpenter........The Wiki says this:
The Walrus and the Carpenter are the titular characters in the poem, which is recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee to Alice. Walking upon a beach one night when both sun and moon are visible, the Walrus and Carpenter come upon an offshore bed of oysters, four of whom they invite to join them; to the disapproval of the eldest oyster, many more follow them. After walking along the beach (a point is made of the fact that the oysters are all neatly shod despite having no feet), the two titular characters are revealed to be predatory and eat all of the oysters. After hearing the poem, the good-natured Alice attempts to determine which of the two leading characters might be the more sympathetic, but is thwarted by the twins' further interpretation:
"I like the Walrus best," said Alice, "because you see he was a little sorry for the poor oysters."

"He ate more than the Carpenter, though," said Tweedledee. "You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise."

"That was mean!" Alice said indignantly. "Then I like the Carpenter best—-if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus."

"But he ate as many as he could get," said Tweedledum.

This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, "Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—"
Look also at the style of writing ………………..It is rather like John’s in “I Am The Walrus”
[FONT=&quot]"The time has come," the Walrus said,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The idea for the Walrus came from the poem The Walrus and The Carpenter, which is from the sequel to Alice in Wonderland called Through the Looking-Glass. In his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said: "It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, s--t, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, 'I am the carpenter.' But that wouldn't have been the same, would it?"[/FONT]
Thanks song facts
So what do we have:
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
See how they fly, I'm crying

“Lennon explained the origins of this song in his 1980 Playboy interview: "The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko. “…………..
The song's opening line, "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" is based on the song "Marching To Pretoria," which contains the lyric, "I'm with you and you're with me and we are all together." Thanks Song Facts…
There are a few minor additions …………In England the police are often referred to as “The Pigs” and the London police investigation squad is the Flying squad…………..it could be that this helped John to put this together because there were lots of drug raids at this time on famous people…………..Lennon was to become a victim too and this would stop him from getting a green card in the USA for years.
( Notice also in the video of I Am The Walrus there are lines of police dancing above the Beatles and in the Free AS A Bird video there is a pig in police clothes !)
Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come


This has had several attempts from various sources............IN the part of the North of England I come from “ Waiting for the van to come “ Means waiting to be taken away to a mental institute.
The cornflake reference has turned up before in the song Good Morning Good morning and I feel it was part of John’s morning routine ( or later ) to eat cornflakes.

Other s feel differently: Around 1966/7 after touring Paul became rather difficult to locate ( e was spending a lot of time renovating his farm in Campbell Town in Scotland) Rumours started to fly that He was dead.................He as supposed to be “ The man who blew his mind out in a car “ in “A Day In The Life”..................
So the fans who thought there were clues in Beatles song have taken this seriously..................Lennon loved this so it is thought he started to plant clues .............
This song helped fuel the rumor that Paul McCartney was dead. It's quite a stretch, but theorists found these clues in the lyrics, none of which are substantiated:
"Waiting for the van to come" means the 3 remaining Beatles are waiting for a police van to come.
Song Facts...................
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you've been a naughty boy
You let your face grow long


Not to clear this but I feel that there are two things we can assume....
Man you've been a naughty boy
This is John’s word play ......he uses a similar one later.
You let your face grow long
The Beatles had all gown beards for Sgt Pepper.
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday

I have not much of a clue..................Perhaps John did not like Tuesdays ( Bob Geldolf didn’t like Mondays!!)
I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' job

Goo goo g' job was the last thing Humpty Dumpty said before he fell of the wall in the children’s nursery rhyme.............I is also accepted that Humpty was an egg so I guess that explains this up to a point.
Mr. City policeman sitting
Pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run, I'm crying
John had had a really difficult childhood, psychological analysis of the situation by many has concluded that he would have problems with figures of authority ( Because the ones he had known when young were poor role models )
So , it is probable that John would make fun of them and in I Am The Walrus we can see this in the video ad in this part............................There is a phrase in UK English about “ Sitting Pretty “ which means being content even a little over confident and this might well be what John was using to poke at an authority figure...................
The Lucy part is a back reference to his own work as a comparison for his feelings .....................
Why John is crying : AS he is the Walrus and this is a confusing time of his life ....................
Jumping a verse:
Sitting in an English garden
Waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan
From standing in the English rain


This also might shed light on why.....................John was still living at Kenwood when he wrote this........His days were spent in the Kitchen on a large settee looking at the gardens............I think this might be some idea of contentment for John. Hence the image following I’m crying.................
IN addition it is an English thing o do to talk about the weather and in England it is are that the weather is that good hence John might write about the idea................
Back to the flow of the song
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
You let your knickers down

A really odd bit or is it.........................Kids in Northern England like to make up nonsense rhymes ...
John loved nursery rhymes and so forth:

To Song Facts :
When Lennon decided to write confusing lyrics, he asked his friend Pete Shotton for a nursery rhyme they used to sing. Shotton gave them this rhyme, which Lennon incorporated into the song:
"Yellow matter custard, green slop pie, all mixed together with a dead dog's eye.
Slap it on a butty, ten foot thick, then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick."
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
You let your knickers down


This looks like a few comments on the decaying censorship rules of the UK..............In 1968 the last vestiges of Censorship were still in operation in the UK....................Boards of Middle class older people had the power to decide what and what not the British public could see on the stage and in the cinema......................However this was falling down....................What you could or not see in Soho at this time was amazing and most of the Boards of censors where found viewing it at the time Hypocrites ! This was also the section that got the track banded by the BBC .

So John had a poke at that and again used his word play as mentioned earlier...................

Expert, texpert choking smokers
Don't you think the joker laughs at you?
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide, I'm crying

Semolina Pilchard Climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking
Edgar Allan Poe


Expert , textpert chocking smokers .................The UK was beginning to look at the effects of smoking and a debate was starting on TV about this .............I think that was in John’s mind as well as the drug taking people from the circle of intellectuals who surrounded him at the time. The Textpert is text expert ......ie journalists..........................
The Joker: Reference to Bob Dylan and his advice about writing songs and John in I Am The Walrus trying to write as obliquely as Dylan.
Snide is a word meaning sarcastic and many English press people were often sarcastic to John around 1967.............The Beatle magical invincibility was beginning to crack around now............WE had had the “Bigger Than Jesus “ problems ................which had been started in the US but had their roots in a misquoted article by Maureen Cleave in a English magazine................
“Semolina Pilchard" was Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher, head of the Scotland Yard Drugs Unit. He led the arrests of both John Lennon and Brian Jones et al, before being investigated himself for blackmail and bribery in the '70s. thanks, Song Facts

Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular. The reference to 'Element'ry penguin' is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, 'Hare Krishna,' or putting all your faith in any one idol. I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan, in those days."


Man, you should have seen them kicking
Edgar Allan Poe


“Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre.” Thanks Wiki
There is a Lennonesque double meaning here...........................In English slang Edgar Allen Poe is slang for a chamber pot of bowl which goes under the bead at night so you can relieve yourself ! John always tried to “Get Away with things “ and this could be an example...............

Extra things of interest.
There is no true Stereo version of this...................Why well the end part with the Shakespeare play in was taken live into the mixing desk during a mono take. It is buried in the mix and can not be unpicked .................There have been thoughts to use the original taped broadcast but the powers that be would not do it. So towards the end of the stereo version there is a fake stereo part to compensate for this.
Backing vocals : "Oompah, oompah, stick it in your jumper" and "Everybody's got one, everybody's got one."
Again John poking fun!
The Shakespeare...........................Wiki ....

The dramatic reading in the mix towards the end of the song is a few lines of Shakespeare's King Lear (Act IV, Scene VI), which were added to the song direct from an AM radio receiving the broadcast of the play on the BBC Third Programme.[11] As it happens, Lear IV.6. is the only scene in all of Shakespeare (out of more than a thousand) that features both English homonyms for "Beatle." Lennon said in a 29 September 1974 radio interview with disc jockey Dennis Elsas that he "didn't even know it was Lear" until someone brought it up to him much later. The bulk of the audible dialogue, heard in the fade, is the death scene of the character Oswald (including the words, "O untimely Death! Death!"). Two other lines from the play are at the beginning of the third chorus, 2:25 into the song. They are taken from the two lines:
"Glou. Now, good sir, what are you?
Edg. A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows, Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows, Am pregnant to good pity."
These lines are faded in and out in the recording, so that we hear only: "Now, good sir;" "man, made tame to fortune's;" and "goo"

I Guess I should add..........This is how I see it ...............I did not know Lennon nor was I able to meet him........I have just read books listened to interviews and searched the internet for 40 year with great interest!

[CRAZY-HORSE]

thanks Gryphon..
there sure seems to be a lot going on in Lennon's head at that time,yet he still managed to put it into a three minute song... quite amazing really!...and a talent that ended way too young IMO

[gryphon]

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[SteveO]

Oh my, another gem !!!!! It's good to be able to understand the lyrics of the Beatles' complex songs....it helps to appreciate their genius even more when the songs are dissected in detail !

Interesting that most of the complex songs are John's and Paul's songs for the most part are straight forward!

thanks again for this, Gryph ! Fantastic work !

[SteveO]

Gryph,

Can please you tackle Come Together and Tomorrow Never Knows ?