John Lennon was annoyed. It was 1967, the "Summer of Love" was cooling into a weird, experimental autumn, and he had just received a letter from a student at his old high school, Quarry Bank. This kid mentioned that his teacher was making the class analyze Beatles lyrics like they were high-standard poetry.
Lennon found this hilarious. And irritating.
He decided to write the most confusing, grammatically broken, and absurdist song possible just to watch the "experts" lose their minds trying to decode it. That is the origin story of the I Am a Walrus lyrics. It wasn't a deep spiritual manifesto. It was a prank. A glorious, psychedelic, multi-layered prank that accidentally became one of the most influential pieces of avant-pop ever recorded.
Honestly, if you’re looking for a linear story in these verses, you’re going to give yourself a headache. It's a collage.
The "Coo Coo Cachoo" of It All
The song kicks off with a line that sounds like a philosophy lecture gone wrong: "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." It’s a nod to "Marching to Pretoria," but twisted into a knot. Lennon wanted to establish right away that identity in this song is fluid. Or meaningless. Probably both.
People always ask about the "Eggman."
The "Eggman" was actually Eric Burdon, the lead singer of The Animals. Apparently, Burdon had a... let’s call it a specific "reputation" involving eggs during certain intimate moments. Lennon thought it was funny. He threw it in. Simple as that. No cosmic mystery. Just an inside joke between 1960s rock stars that millions of teenagers later tried to link to Humpty Dumpty or Lewis Carroll.
Speaking of Carroll, that’s where the Walrus comes from. Lennon later realized, somewhat sheepishly, that the Walrus in Through the Looking-Glass is actually the villain of the story. He’d seen himself as the "good guy" in the poem, but the Walrus is the one who tricks and eats the little oysters.
"I should have been the carpenter," he told Playboy in 1980. But "I am the Carpenter" doesn't have the same phonetic punch, does it?
Why the I Am a Walrus Lyrics Sound Like a Fever Dream
Lennon wrote the song across three different "ideas" or "moods."
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The first part was inspired by a two-note siren he heard while sitting in his home at Kenwood. He just started chanting to the rhythm of the siren. Then he added a bit about "sitting in an English garden." Then he got the letter from the schoolboy and decided to go full-tilt into the weirdness.
The Wordplay Jungle
Look at the phrasing. "Elementary penguin schooling BHC." "Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower."
- Semolina Pilchard: This was a dig at Norman Pilcher, a police detective who was famous (or infamous) for busting rock stars for drugs. Lennon hated him. So, he turned him into a sardine (pilchard) climbing a landmark.
- The Penguin: A jab at the literal-minded "elementary" thinkers who were trying to categorize the Beatles' art.
- Lucy in the Sky: He even references his own past work, just to mess with the people who thought every song lived in its own isolated universe.
The imagery is aggressive. It’s "snied," it’s "crabalocker," it’s "yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye." Lennon actually took that last line from a playground nursery rhyme he remembered as a kid. He was reaching into the basement of his subconscious and throwing whatever he found at the wall.
The Sound of 1967 Radio Chaos
The "lyrics" aren't just what John sang. The song is a living, breathing soundscape.
During the mixing session, Lennon decided to plug a radio into the console and just... see what happened. He started turning the dial. He happened to catch a BBC Third Programme broadcast of William Shakespeare’s King Lear.
If you listen closely to the fade-out, you hear the lines: "If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body" and "O, untimely death!"
Fans spent decades wondering if this was a clue to the "Paul is Dead" urban legend. It wasn't. It was literally just what was playing on the radio at that exact moment on September 29, 1967. If the BBC had been playing a weather report or a cooking show, the I Am a Walrus lyrics would have ended with instructions on how to bake a shepherd's pie.
That’s the beauty of it. It’s chaotic. It’s messy. It’s "pure" art because it refuses to explain itself.
The Lewis Carroll Connection
You can't talk about this song without mentioning Alice in Wonderland. Lennon was obsessed with it. He loved the way Carroll used language to create worlds that didn't need to make sense to be felt.
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In "Walrus," he uses "portmanteau" words—words smashed together to create new meanings. "Crabalocker." "Texpert."
He was poking fun at the "experts" (Texperts) who were choking the life out of rock music by over-analyzing it. He wanted to give them something they couldn't analyze. Ironically, by doing that, he created the most analyzed song in history.
The Controversy and the Ban
The BBC, being the BBC of the late 60s, actually banned the song.
Why? Was it the dead dog’s eye? The "pornographic" priest?
Nope. It was the word "knickers."
The line "You’ve been a naughty girl, you’ve let your knickers down" was too much for the British censors. They saw it as a threat to public morality. Lennon found the whole thing ridiculous. He was trying to push boundaries, and the establishment obliged by getting offended by the most trivial part of the entire composition.
How to Actually "Understand" the Song
If you want to get the most out of the I Am a Walrus lyrics, stop trying to solve them like a math equation. It’s not a puzzle. It’s an impressionist painting.
When Lennon says, "I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus," he’s talking about the absurdity of labels. We all want to be something. We all want to belong to a group. But in the end, we’re all just "goo goob g'joob"ing our way through a nonsensical existence.
Key Takeaways for the Casual Listener:
- Don't look for a plot. There isn't one.
- Listen to the phonetics. Lennon chose words based on how they felt in his mouth (the "k" and "p" sounds are very prominent) rather than what they meant in a dictionary.
- Appreciate the spite. A good portion of this song was written specifically to annoy a high school teacher. That’s rock and roll at its core.
The song is a masterpiece of the "Studio as an Instrument" era. George Martin’s orchestration—the sliding cellos that sound like they’re weeping or laughing—adds a layer of dread that makes the nonsense feel heavy. It feels important.
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And that was the final joke. Lennon wrote nonsense, and George Martin made it sound like the end of the world.
Moving Forward With Your Beatles Deep Dive
If you're ready to go further into the rabbit hole, there are a few things you should do to really "get" what was happening in the Abbey Road studios in 1967.
First, go listen to the Esher Demos. You can find them on the 50th-anniversary releases. Hearing the early, acoustic versions of these "nonsense" songs shows you how much of the "weirdness" was baked into the melody before the studio tricks even started.
Next, read The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. It’s the book Lennon likely had or was influenced by. It explains all the Victorian references in Lewis Carroll’s work, which helps you see where Lennon was stealing his "vibe" from.
Finally, stop treating the Beatles like a museum exhibit. They were four guys in their 20s who were high, tired, and incredibly bored with being told what their music meant. The next time you hear the I Am a Walrus lyrics, don't think about poetry. Think about John Lennon smirking at a mixing desk, wondering if that kid at Quarry Bank was going to have to write an essay about "yellow matter custard."
Check out the Magical Mystery Tour film if you haven't. It’s a mess, honestly. But the "I Am a Walrus" segment is the highlight. It captures the visual chaos that matches the lyrical density. It’s the only way to see the "Eggmen" in their natural habitat.
The real insight here? The meaning of the song is that it has no meaning. And in a world obsessed with finding "the point," that's a pretty powerful point to make.
Listen to the mono mix if you can find it. The radio bleed-through is different, and the bass is much punchier. It changes the whole "vibe" of the track. After that, you'll probably never hear the word "goo goob g'joob" the same way again.
Practical Steps for Music Enthusiasts:
- A/B Test the Mixes: Compare the 1967 Mono mix with the 2023 Giles Martin Stereo remix. The clarity in the new version reveals background vocal layers you probably missed.
- Read Lennon's Nonsense Books: Check out In His Own Write or A Spaniard in the Works. They were written before the song but use the exact same linguistic gymnastics.
- Contextualize the Era: Listen to I Am a Walrus back-to-back with Strawberry Fields Forever. It helps you see the transition from childhood nostalgia to cynical adulthood.