I Am The Walrus (1967) – the Beatles

The Beatles were peaches when they first started out. Strapping young lads in their sharp suits singing I Want to Hold Your Hand with the adjoining bowl-top haircuts. Just dishes they were – and boy did they ever make those girls scream their heads off! Everyone was in love with them.

But then they met Bob Dylan in 1964, which famously led to the band’s first experiences with marijuana. That sleek veneer of four lovely boys from Liverpool singing sweetly about holding hands – who you could bring home to meet your mum – gradually started to wear off.

They began to individualise and experiment – not only with drugs, but also with attire, facial and head hair, and most significantly their music and songwriting. Then LSD came into the picture for John Lennon and – boom. Combine that with his cynical disposition toward people offering overly serious scholarly interpretations of Beatles lyrics and you get today’s featured song: I Am the Walrus. I like a bit of wacky, zany Beatles, and “Walrus” is most definitely that – another great B-side track (to Hello, Goodbye).

You know you are going to have fun when a music video opens with a Bus Conductor saying: “We are concerned for you to enjoy yourselves, under the limits of British decency. You know what I mean, don’t you? Well, don’t you?!” What a great blend of playful irreverence and the era’s cultural constraints.

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The following was abridged from the Wikipedia article below:

The music video below is from from the Beatles 1967 television film Magical Mystery Tour. It depicts a group of people on a coach tour (including the band members) who experience strange happenings caused by magicians.

Lennon wrote the song to confound listeners who had been affording serious scholarly interpretations of the Beatles’ lyrics. He was partly inspired by two LSD trips and Lewis Carroll’s 1871 poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter“.

Since the “Hello, Goodbye” single and the Magical Mystery Tour EP both reached the top two slots on the British singles chart in December, “I Am the Walrus” holds the distinction of reaching numbers one and two simultaneously. Shortly after release, the song was banned by the BBC for the line “Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down“.

[Verse 1]
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 cryin’

[Verse 2]
Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation tee-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man, you’ve been a naughty boy
You let your face grow long

[Chorus]
I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob

[Verse 3]
Mister City policeman sitting
Pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run, I’m cryin’
I’m cryin’, I’m cryin’, I’m cryin’

[Verse 4]
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

[Chorus]
I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob

[Bridge]
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

[Chorus]
I am the egg man (Now good sir, what are you?)
They are the egg men (A poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows)
I am the walrus
Goo goo goo joob
G’goo goo g’joob (Good pity)

[Verse 5]
Expert, textpert, choking smokers
Don’t you think the joker laughs at you?
(Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, ha ha ha)
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snied, I’m cryin’

[Verse 6]
Semolina pilchard
Climbing up the Eiffel Tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them
Kicking Edgar Allan Poe

[Chorus]
I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob
Goo goo a’joob g’goo goo g’joob, g’goo
Joob! Joob! Joob!

[Bridge]
Joob! Joob! Joob!
Joob! Joob! Joob! Joob! Joob!
Joob! Joob!
Joob! Joob!

[Outro]
Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper
Everybody’s got one, everybody’s got one
“Villain, take my Purse
If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my Body
And give the Letters which thou findst about me
To Edmund Earl of Gloucester: seek him out upon the English Party
Oh, untimely death, death–”
“I know thee well, a serviceable Villain; as duteous to the Vices of thy Mistress as badness would desire”
“What, is he dead?”
“Sit you down, Father; rest you”

References:
1. I am the Walrus – Wikipedia