I am the walrus

I am the walrus
The Beatles
publication	November 24, 1967
length	4 min 33 s
Genre (s)	Psychedelic rock , rock
Author (s)	Lennon / McCartney
Label	Parlophone , Capitol Records
album	Magical Mystery Tour

I Am the Walrus ( English I am the Walrus ) is a song by The Beatles from 1967. The piece was largely from John Lennon composed, but received as usual the Copyright Lennon / McCartney . The song first appeared on the B-side of the number 1 hit Hello, Goodbye on November 24, 1967 . It was also used for the EP and the album Magical Mystery Tour, as well as for the film of the same name . The tracklist of the album mentions 'No you're not!' As the subtitle of the song . said Little Nicola . The song produced by George Martin falls into the genre of Psychedelic Rock . The recordings took place at Abbey Road Studios . The song was released under the Parlophone and Capitol Records labels .

I Am the Walrus was remixed in 2006 for the album Love and introduced with a sequence from Julia .

Emergence

The Walrus and the Carpenter,
illustration by John Tenniel in
Alice Behind the Looking Glass

Lennon's lyrics were based on three different ideas for a song. He found the main inspiration, however, in the poem about the walrus and the carpenter from Alice behind the mirrors , to which the song also refers in terms of content.

The first idea he was inspired by a police siren while he was writing the text “Mis-ter cit-y police-man” in his house in Weybridge and composed the rhythm of the siren. The second idea was a quick rhyme about yourself, sitting in his garden, and the third idea was the sheer nonsense of sitting on a cereal . Since he was unable to finish these pieces, he decided to combine them.

Some time later, Lennon received a letter from a student at Quarry Bank Grammar School, which he had also attended as a child. The child explained that his English teacher had asked the class to analyze Beatles texts. (John Lennon replied to this letter on September 1, 1967; the reply letter was auctioned at Christie's in 1992. )

Amused by the fact that a teacher put so much energy into understanding Beatles lyrics, he decided to write as confusing, unusual text as possible. He got a visit from a friend and former member of the Quarrymen , Peter Shotton, whom he asked about a nonsensical nursery rhyme from their childhood together.

Shotton could remember these lines:

"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. "

Lennon took a few of the words of this rhyme, added the three old unfinished ideas and as a result got the text: "I Am the Walrus." The Eggman in the text was probably a reference to Eric Burdon . Burdon was nicknamed Eggs by friends for breaking raw eggs over naked women during sex. Burdon described an incident where Lennon was present and Burdon said, "Go on, go get it, Eggman!" should have cheered.

But both the structure and the grotesque text of the song were changed again and again over several weeks during the recording at Abbey Road Studios . George Martin wrote an elaborate string arrangement for the overdubs .

The song fades out with a BBC recording of the play King Lear that was on the radio when the song was mixed into mono for the single. Since a mix could not be repeated for this reason, there was no complete stereo version of the song for a very long time . Instead, on the album Magical Mystery Tour , up to the onset of the radio recordings, a stereo mix was heard, to which the original mono mix was then added. The version consisted of a stereo and a mono version.

What is striking about the music is that the entire song only consists of major and dominant seventh chords , with all chords from A to G (i.e. A, B, C, D, E, F and G) being used - the English tone designation " B ”corresponds to the German“ H ”. The song ends with a chord progression built on an ascending and descending bass and string line that is repeated until it comes to fade out.

The text “See how they fly like Lucy in the sky” refers to Lennon's earlier play Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds .

In the lyrics of the piece Glass Onion , published in 1968 on the so-called White Album , Lennon and McCartney once again made fun of the attempts to interpret their songs by adding the line “Well here's another clue for you all, the walrus was Paul” (German: "Here is another hint for you, Paul was the walrus") inserted.

In 1970 John Lennon released his first solo album, John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band . The song God contained on it refers to I Am the Walrus in a line of text .

Cover versions

Like many Beatles pieces, the song was often covered , including by actor Jim Carrey on the CD In My Life by Beatles producer George Martin . Other cover versions come from Spooky Tooth (1970), Frank Zappa (1988), Dekadance (1989), Men Without Hats (1991), Oingo Boingo (1994), Oasis (1994), den Toten Hosen (1996), Klaus Lage , who published a German version of the title in 1980, and Bono (2007, for the film Across the Universe ). On August 12, 2012, Russell Brand sang the piece at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London's Olympic Stadium .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pete Shotton and Nicholas Schaffner: The Beatles, Lennon, and Me . Stein and Day, New York 1984, ISBN 0-8128-8072-2 , pp. 217 f .
2. ↑ Barry Miles: Many Years From Now . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1999, ISBN 3-499-60892-8 , pp. 429 .
3. ↑ Recording, mixing: I Am The Walrus (Beatles Diary) on beatlesbible.com
4. ↑ Barry Miles: Paul McCartney. Many years from now. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1999, p. 615