I Am the Walrus

"I am the Walrus" was a 1967 The Beatles song credited to Lennon/McCartney that was released on the B-side track of the Hello, Goodbye single release. This fact angered Lennon as "[he] felt that it was better." It is widely regarded as The Beatles' most "outragous and psycadelic" song ever.

Inspiration and Song Structure
The song was originally written as three independent songs by Lennon. One was inspired by the up and down patterns of a police siren (the "mister city p'licemen" portion). Another was an odd line about cornflakes ("sitting on a cornflake/waiting for the van to come"). The third was a tune about sitting in his garden ("sitting in an English garden/waiting for the sun). One line of the song was taken from a nursery rhyme that Lennon had asked his friend, Peter Shotton to remind him of the lyrics to. The rhyme went:


 * 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 cold cup of sick

(which inspired the lyric "Yellow matter custard/dripping from a dead dog's eye")

"I Am the Walrus" was also inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem, "The Walrus and The Carpenter." Lennon was later dismayed as he found out that the Walrus in the poem is in fact the villain, who represented capitalism.

The song was also written in response to a letter he recieved about how a teacher had begun to analyze songs of the Beatles. The song was intentionally written to decieve those trying to find a meaning within the song.

The intro lyric "I am he/as you are he/as you are me/and we are all together" is a boiled down version of Indian philosophy.

The line "elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna" is a political statement aimed at blind worship of religion. The "penguins" were praying without aking why. This is an example of Lennon incorporating obscure lyrics into his songs, which was inspired by Bob Dylan.

This song is rumored to be inspired by LSD. This may or may not be true, as it is widely known The Beatles experimented with the then legal "wonder drug."

"I Am the Walrus" is famous for it's unique chord structure, which uses each letter in the musical alphabet in succession (A-B-C-D-E-F-G). The bridge of this song (sitting in an English garden ...) basically is still following this main pattern, but starting on a B chord, rather than an A chord.

After the chorus of, "I am the eggman (woo) they are the eggman (woo) I am the Walrus", Lennon exclaims a series of nonsence words, spelled "goo goo g'joob" (as in the lyrics in the album state).

Towards the end of the song, a choir sings the lines "oompah oompah stick it in your jumper!" and "got one got one everybody's got one!" The latter of the two lines has often been mistaken as "smoke pot smoke pot everybody smoke pot," but this is completely false. These lines also came from a nursery rhyme.

The song has virtually no meaning. As said above, the lines have partial meanings, and references to many things, a favorite of Lennon's.

Trivia

 * The song makes a reference to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in the line "See how they fly like Lucy in the Sky."
 * This song is referenced in "Glass Onion" by saying "the walrus was Paul."
 * This song was covered in the Beatles movie-musical Across the Universe by Bono who was playing a man called Dr. Roberts in the film.
 * The line "goo-goo-ga-joob' is a reference to the book "Finnegan's Wake", in which Humpty-Dumpty exclaims "goo-goo-ga-joob!" before he falls and breaks his head.
 * A dramatization of Shakespeare's King Lear (Act IV, Scene 6) can be heard throughout the song.