TheBeatlesOnline

I Am The Walrus

John Lennon: Vocals, electric piano
Paul McCartney: Bass, vocals
George Harrison: Guitar, vocals
Ringo Starr: Drums

Sidney Sax: Violin
Jack Rothstein: Violin
Ralph Elman: Violin
Andrew McGee: Violin
Jack Greene: Violin
Louis Stevens: Violin
John Jezzard: Violin
Jack Richards: Violin
Lionel Ross: Cello
Eldon Fox: Cello
Bram Martin: Cello
Terry Weil: Cello
Gordon Lewin: Clarinet
Neil Sanders: Horn
Tony Tunstall: Horn
Morris Miller: Horn
The Mike Sammes Singers: Vocals

Recorded September 5, 6, 27, 28, 29 1967.

Available on:
Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles 1967-1970(The Blue Album)
Anthology 2

The song that Beatles producer George Martin later described as "organsied chaos" was written by John Lennon, with a little help from Lewis Carroll and a nonsense childrens rhyme.

Lennon was playing the piano in his Weybridge home when he heard police sirens outside in the distance. This gave him the idea to structure a song around the semitonal sound of the sirens.

The lyrics to the chorus were inspired by Lewis Carroll's story The Carpenter and the Walrus. Lennon later said he regretted singing the line I Am The Walrus when he realised that the Walrus was the 'bad guy' in the story. Nevertheless, this was not the first time Carroll had inspired Lennon's lyrics. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, also written in 1967, had been inspired by the books Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass.

Lennon, together with his childhood friend Pete Shotton, also took inspiration from a nonsense playground rhyme they could remember from when they grew up in Liverpool:

"Yellow matter custard, green slop pie
All mixed together with a dead dog's eye."

This was rewritten to:

"Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye."

Lennon was of course not the first to write anti-establishment, nonsense lyrics that left more questions than clues for the listener. Dylan started this trend already in 1965-66, and in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Lennon revealed that Dylan surreal poems had inspired him:

"Dylan got away with murder. I thought, I can write this crap, too," he said.

Another source of inspiration could have been Procol Harum's hit singel A Whiter Shade Of Pale, which featured some very abstract lyrics. A Whiter Shade Of Pale was one of Lennon's favorite tunes in the summer of 1967.

However, Lennon's friend Pete Shotton said the inspiartion to I Am The Walrus came from a letter sent to him from a pupil at at his old school Quarry Bank in Liverpool. The letter said that the pupils were analysing Beatles' lyrics in the English classes, something that Lennon found highly amuzing. He then got the urge to put together something abstract and surreal, possibly to tease those who looked for clues in his lyrics.

Many claim that LSD played a vital role when Lennon wrote I Am The Walrus. Lennon did later admit that he frequently used the drug between 1966 an 1968. Much of his previous surrealistic work, such as Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said She Said, Lucy In The Sky With Dimonds and Strawberry Fields Forever, had also been influenced by series of acid trips.

Further developments to the song were carried out in Abbey Road Studos over several recording sessions. Extracts from a radio play featuring William Shakspear's The Tradegy Of King Lear, which happened to be brodcast just as Lennon was flicking through the stations, was added to the mix.

The line "bury my body" in the fade out has been used to support the popular Paul-is-dead-theory (see Glass Onion for further details.)

George Martin wrote the score for the orchestral parts, as usual, and The Mike Sammes Singers, a choir of 8 male and 8 female voices, was brought in to sing:

"Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha
Oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper
Got one, got one, everybody's got one."

"The idea of using voices was a good one," Martin said in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recoding Sessions.

"We got in the The Mike Sammes Singers, very commercial people and so alien to John that it wasn't true. But in the score I simply orchestrated the laughs and noises, the whooooooah kind of thing. John was delighted with it."

The end result was an unorthodox masterpiece of song, often hailed by fans as one Beatles' finest moments ever. Once again the Beatles had shown that they were ahead of their time. Once again they had set new standards within popular music.

I Am The Walrus

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
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

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

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