John Lennon was annoyed. It was 1967, and he’d just received a letter from a student at his old high school, Quarry Bank. This kid told him that his teacher was making the class analyze Beatles lyrics like they were high literature or something. Lennon thought it was hilarious, but also kind of pathetic. He turned to his friend Pete Shotton and basically said, "Let’s see what those idiots make of this." He then set out to write the most confusing, nonsensical, and "un-analyzable" song in the history of pop music. That’s how we got the I Am the Walrus lyrics, a psychedelic word-salad that has kept fans, scholars, and stoners scratching their heads for over half a century.
It worked. People are still trying to figure out what a "crabalocker" is.
The song wasn't just a random fluke. It was a calculated middle finger to anyone looking for deep meaning where Lennon felt none existed. He was blending three different song fragments he’d been working on. One was inspired by a police siren he heard at his home in Weybridge. Another was a short rhythmic chant about "sitting in an English garden." The third was a total nonsense piece about sitting on a cornflake. When you stitch those together with a heavy dose of LSD and a cynical sense of humor, you get a masterpiece of the absurd.
The Lewis Carroll Connection and the Big Mistake
Most people know the title comes from Lewis Carroll’s poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from Through the Looking-Glass. Lennon loved Carroll. He related to the whimsical, dark imagery. But here’s the kicker: Lennon later realized he’d backed the wrong horse.
"I didn't check it," he told Playboy in 1980. He admitted that to him, the Walrus was the hero. He later found out that in the poem, the Walrus is actually the villain who tricks and eats the little oysters. Lennon joked that if he’d known, he probably should have called the song "I Am the Carpenter." But "I Am the Carpenter" doesn't exactly have the same ring to it, does it? It doesn't fit the surrealist landscape of the Magical Mystery Tour era.
The I Am the Walrus lyrics are packed with these kinds of literary traps. Take the line about "The Eggman." For years, people thought this was some deep mythological reference or a nod to Humpty Dumpty. In reality, it was likely a reference to Eric Burdon, the lead singer of The Animals. Apparently, Burdon had a... specific reputation involving breaking eggs during certain intimate encounters. Lennon found the story funny, and into the song it went. This is the recurring theme of the track: it’s an inside joke that the whole world was invited to, but no one was given the punchline.
Semolina Pilchard and the Real-Life People in the Song
When you hear Lennon sneer about "Semolina Pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower," he isn't just making up sounds. He’s taking a dig at Sergeant Detective Norman Pilcher. Pilcher was the head of the London Drug Squad at the time and was notorious for busting rock stars like Donovan, Mick Jagger, and eventually Lennon himself. By turning his name into "Semolina Pilchard"—a type of flour mixed with a small, oily fish—Lennon was stripping the man of his authority. He was making him a cartoon character.
Then there’s the "Elementary penguin schooling B.V.D.s."
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This is Lennon attacking Allen Ginsberg and the Beat poets. He thought they were getting a bit too precious, a bit too serious about their enlightened status. The penguin represents someone who thinks they are sophisticated but is really just mimicking behavior, tripping over their own underwear (B.V.D.s). It’s a dense, weirdly specific insult.
He also threw in "Lucy in the sky," a self-referential nod to the controversy surrounding "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." By 1967, the BBC had already banned several Beatles songs for supposed drug references. Lennon was leaning into it. He was daring them to ban this one too. He used words like "knickers" and "slapper," which were pretty edgy for the BBC back then. They obliged, of course, and banned the song for the use of the word "knickers." Lennon probably laughed for a week.
A Technical Mess: The Radio and the Choir
If the I Am the Walrus lyrics weren't weird enough on paper, the recording process made them legendary. While they were mixing the track, Lennon decided to feed a live radio signal directly into the console. He started twisting 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 can hear actual lines from Act IV, Scene 6:
- "O, untimely death! Death!"
- "Take you my purse..."
- "What, is he dead?"
It wasn't planned. It was a "found object" in the middle of a pop song.
Then you have the Mike Sammes Singers. This was a professional choir that usually did very straight-laced back-up vocals. George Martin, the Beatles' producer, had them doing all sorts of bizarre phonetic gymnastics. They had to chant "Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha," and "Oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper," and "Everybody’s got one." It sounds like a playground chant turned into a fever dream. It’s mocking. It’s chaotic. It’s exactly what the song needed to bridge the gap between "nursery rhyme" and "avant-garde."
Breaking Down the Nonsense: What’s a Goo Goo G’joob?
The refrain "Goo goo g'joob" is often compared to the final words of Humpty Dumpty in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. People have written entire theses on this. They claim Lennon was channeling Joyce’s "googoo goosth."
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Honestly? It’s more likely he was just making baby noises.
Lennon liked the way the sounds hit the ear. He was a fan of "The Little Pigs" by The Coasters, which had a similar rhythmic feel. He wanted something that sounded like a primal scream but felt like a joke. It’s the sound of someone losing their mind and enjoying every second of it.
You see the same thing in the "Yellow matter custard" line. That actually comes from an old schoolyard rhyme Lennon remembered:
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.
He took the first line and followed it up with "Dripping from a dead dog's eye." It’s gross. It’s juvenile. It’s brilliant. He was taking the most base, childish memories and elevating them to the status of high art, specifically to watch the critics try to explain why "dead dog's eye" was a metaphor for the Vietnam War or the collapse of the British Empire.
The Mystery of the "Man" in the Lyrics
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together."
This opening line is often cited as a summary of Eastern philosophy or the "oneness" experienced during an acid trip. While Lennon was certainly exploring those themes at the time, the line also serves as a perfect linguistic circle. It says everything and nothing at the same time. It sets the stage for a song that refuses to let the listener find a solid footing.
You’re constantly being shifted from one perspective to another.
One minute you’re "standing in the English rain," the next you’re "sitting on a cornflake."
The geography of the song is impossible.
The logic is circular.
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The mention of "Mr. City Policeman" sitting "pretty" while the "pretty little policemen are in a row" creates this weird, authoritarian imagery that feels oppressive but silly. Lennon was mocking the structure of society. He saw the police, the teachers, and the religious leaders as "pigs" (another line in the song) who were trying to keep everyone in line. To him, the only way to beat them was to be the Walrus—whatever that meant.
Why the Lyrics Still Matter Today
The I Am the Walrus lyrics remain a benchmark for surrealism in music. Before this, pop lyrics were mostly about holding hands or "I love you." After this? The door was wide open. You could write about anything. You could write about nothing.
The song teaches us a few things about creativity:
- Don't be afraid of the absurd. Sometimes the thing that makes the least sense is the thing that resonates the most.
- Context is everything. The Shakespeare snippets and the radio static weren't supposed to be there, but they became the soul of the track.
- Question authority. Lennon’s disdain for the people trying to "analyze" him led to his most interesting work.
If you’re looking for a single, unified meaning in this song, you’re doing exactly what Lennon hoped you would do. You’re falling into the trap. The meaning is the lack of meaning. It’s a Rorschach test set to a heavy drum beat and a distorted cello.
How to Approach "I Am the Walrus" Like an Expert
If you want to really understand the DNA of this track, stop looking at it as a poem and start looking at it as a collage.
- Listen for the layers. Don't just focus on the words. Listen to the way the cellos move—they aren't playing chords; they're playing rhythmic stabs. This mirrors the jagged nature of the lyrics.
- Read Lewis Carroll. If you want to see where Lennon’s head was at, read The Hunting of the Snark or Alice in Wonderland. You’ll see the same love for portmanteau words (words made by smashing two others together).
- Ignore the "Paul is Dead" conspiracies. Yes, in "Glass Onion," Lennon says "the Walrus was Paul." He later admitted he only said that to confuse people even more. It was another layer of the joke.
- Watch the movie. The Magical Mystery Tour film is a mess, but the "I Am the Walrus" segment is a masterpiece of early music video direction. It captures the visual chaos that matches the lyrical content.
At the end of the day, the song is a reminder that art doesn't always have to be "about" something. It can just be. It can be a collection of sounds, feelings, and "dead dog's eyes" that makes you feel a certain type of way. Lennon proved that you could reach number one on the charts with a song that was essentially a giant prank. And that might be the most "rock and roll" thing any of the Beatles ever did.