Behind the Song: I Am the Walrus

The song ‘I Am the Walrus’ is packed with insane strangeness. Ian McDonald described the piece as “an obsessive musical structure built around a perpetually ascending/descending MC Escher staircase of all-natural major chords.” Though the lyrics are quite odd, the formation and sound is genius. 

The piece features Lennon on vocals and electric piano. Paul on bass guitar and tambourine. George on electric guitar. And, of course, Ringo on drums. It was highlighted in the Magical Mystery Tour tv film. It was also released as a b side of ‘Hello, Goodbye.’ 

Lennon later claimed that while writing some of the opening lyrics, he was highly under the influence of LSD. “The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend, the second line on another acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko.”

Hunter Davies described the starts of the second part in his authorized 1968 biography of The Beatles:

“He’d written down another few words that day, just daft words, to put to another bit of rhythm. ‘Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the man to come.’ I thought he said ‘van to come,’ which he hadn’t, but he liked it better and said he’d use it instead.”

The third part of ‘I Am The Walrus’ began from the phrase “sitting in an English country garden” which, was something Lennon was fond of doing for hours at a time. Lennon repeated the line to himself until a melody came. “I don’t know how it will all end up. Perhaps they’ll turn out to be different parts of the same song – sitting in an English garden, waiting for the van to come. I don’t know.”

Lennon later claimed, “Walrus’ is just saying a dream – the words don’t mean a lot. People draw so many conclusions and it’s ridiculous… What does it really mean, ‘I am the Eggman? It could have been the pudding basin for all I care. It’s not that serious.”

The name came from the poem by Lewis Carroll, featured in ‘Through the Looking Glass.’ The poem was called ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter.’ Lennon would soon say that he identified with the villain of the story. 

“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, shit, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, ‘I am the carpenter.’ But that wouldn’t have been the same, would it?”

The chorus about the Eggman is ideally a friend of Lennon’s who took the nickname after a bizarre incident. The Animals’ lead singer, Eric Burdon, had told Lennon a story where he was shown “tricks” by his Jamaican girlfriend. The incident included egg yoke covering his naked front. “‘Go on, go get it, Eggman,’ Lennon laughed over the little round glasses perched on the end of his hook-like nose,” said Eric. From there on it’s been his lasting nickname. 

A while before creating the song, another one of Lennon’s friends from primary school wrote him. Lennon said he was inspired by the letter from Stephen Bayley. It stated that a teacher of his was having them study and analyze lyrics by The Beatles. Bayley then reminded Lennon of a chant they sung as young children:

“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.” 

The lyrics were turned into “yellow matter custard dripping from dead dog’s eye.” 

After being released, BBC banned the song due to “pornographic priestess.” Here was George’s response: 

“Why can’t you have people fucking as well? It’s going on everywhere in the world, all the time. So why can’t you mention it? It’s just a word, made up by people… It doesn’t mean a thing, so why can’t we use it in a song? We will eventually. We haven’t started yet.” 

Some conspiracies claimed that the walrus was a symbol of death in Greek and Eskimo mythology. In reality, this was blatantly false. It was one of the “clues” (along with the King Lear death scene) that helped to create the “Paul Is Dead” myth.