Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 5, 6, 27, 29 September 1967
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Ken Scott
Released: 24 November 1967 (UK), 27 November 1967 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, electric piano
Paul McCartney: bass guitar
George Harrison: lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Peggie Allen, Wendy Horan, Pat Whitmore, Jill Utting, June Day, Sylvia King, Irene King, G Mallen, Fred Lucas, Mike Redway, John O'Neill, F Dachtler, Allan Grant, D Griffiths, J Smith, J Fraser: backing vocals
Sidney Sax, Jack Rothstein, Ralph Elman, Andrew McGee, Jack Greene, Louis Stevens, John Jezzard, Jack Richards: violins
Lionel Ross, Eldon Fox, Bram Martin, Terry Weil: cellos
Gordon Lewin: clarinet
Neil Sanders, Tony Tunstall, Morris Miller: horns
Available on:
Magical Mystery Tour
Anthology 2
Love
John Lennon's final masterpiece of 1967 found him at his surrealistic, sneering best. I Am The Walrus was included on the soundtrack of the Magical Mystery Tour TV film, and first released as the b-side of Hello Goodbye.
Lennon had wanted I Am the Walrus to be The Beatles' next single after All You Need Is Love, but Paul McCartney and George Martin felt that Hello Goodbye was the more commercial song. The decision led to resentment from Lennon, who complained after the group's split that "I got sick and tired of being Paul's backup band".
The song was written in August 1967, at the peak of the Summer of Love and shortly after the release of Sgt Pepper. Lennon later claimed to have written the opening lines 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.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
I Am The Walrus was a composite of three song fragments. The first part was inspired by a two-note police siren Lennon heard while at home in Weybridge. This became "Mr city policeman sitting pretty..."
Hunter Davies recounted the beginnings of the second part in his authorised 1968 biography of The Beatles:
He'd written down 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 started from the phrase "sitting in an English country garden" which, as Davies noted, Lennon was fond of doing for hours at a time. Lennon repeated the phrase 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.
The Beatles, Hunter Davies
The chord sequence was described by critic Ian MacDonald as "the most unorthodox and tonally ambiguous sequence he ever devised." He ingeniously referred to the looped sequence as "an obsessive musical structure built round a perpetually ascending/descending MC Escher staircase of all the natural major chords".
I Am The Walrus was one of the highlights of the Magical Mystery Tour film. For the performance, filmed in West Malling in Kent, Lennon tellingly wore an 18th century madman's cap.
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Simply fantastic, with Lewis Carrol words and precise metrics. Even in Brazil we consider this song and lyric as absolutely brilliant
In my view, it is the very best of all Beatles' songs. Most creative, both for the music and the words, and still very fresh... it really stands the test of time.
Many of my friends are all avid John Lennon fans. However most of my favorite Beatle songs turn out to be Paul McCartney's. I have always considered I Am the Walrus to be a minor masterpiece and one of several Beatle songs at the height of their creativity.
A minor masterpiece? Weird inaccurate description.
There are expressions here that have some relation to reality. Selmelina Pilchard is liverpool slang for sardine. Yellow matter custard is a reference to Eric Burdon's penchant for breaking eggs on the torsos of female groupies. At least that is the story I have heard. This song is a major masterpiece not a minor masterpiece because there is nothing else quite like it lyrically and musically. Listening to it now Walrus still amazes me with its audicity.
Superb Lennon Song, great sounding song and one his most fantastic vocals. Thanks also to the Abbey Road engineer for recording his vocal on a cheap microphone done on purpose.
you forgot to say that ringo chanted as well, it says in beatles monthly/weekly thing, my guitar teacher told me.
Smoke pot, smoke pot! Everybody smoke pot! Is that what they are saying at the end?
That was the rumour in the 1960s, but I'm pretty sure it's "Got one, got one, everybody's got one". I also once read that some people thought it was "Everybody fuck off", which clearly isn't the case!
I read that "semolina pilchard" was a reference to Detective Sgt. Norman Pilcher, the junkie-buster whose crossed path with The Beatles' a few times.
No Beatle crossed Norman Pilcher's path in 1967 when Walrus was released.
His phony drug planting scheme originally nailed several pop stars including two Beatles (in 1968 & 1969).
He was eventually caught smuggling drugs into the U.K. and was sentenced to a term in prison.
Thanks---the sardine explanation was a lot more rational.
Also--- doesn't "see how they run like pigs from a gun" stike an almost Pink Floyd-esque chord?
Those lyrics are somewhere on the fine line between brilliant lyricism and acid nonsense.
Heard that John wrote this song because he was amused by the fact that school teachers in Britain were analyzing his songs in class, as if they were literature. True?
Yes. Have a look at page two of the article.
Where's that video from? It's not the original from Magical Mystery Tour.
Yes it is. I saw the original broadcast.
Do you think that the original mono mix of I Am the Walrus made on September 29 1967 has an extra bar before "Yellow Matter Custard" part?
If I do recall, the extra bar is only found on the U.S. single 45. (B side of Hello Goodbye) And if I'm not mistaken, the extra bar of music was because John missed his cue to come back in with his vocals.
Who played the Mellotron in the song? It's not mentioned at the top? Was it left out of the final mix?
I think John played the Mellotron and no it was never left out in the final mix.
one of the beatles finest b-sides that could have been an a-side or equal.i am the walrus is an excellent song just like revolution, rain , and don't let me down, who went out as a b-side.
Neither Paul, George or Ringo sang back-up vocals.
You're absolutely right. I'm not sure why I listed them as having done so. I've corrected it now.
I can't believe this was a B-side to Hello, Goodbye...I mean I can't think of two songs more different in style, although i've never really heard a song like Walrus, so what else could go with this? This was Lennon at his best!
Totally agree. "Hello, Goodbye" is not a bad song but "Walrus" is musically much more valuable. It should have been on the A-side.
"The third part started from the phrase "sitting in an English country garden" which, as Davies noted, Lennon was fond of doing for hours at a time. Lennon repeated the phrase to himself until a melody came."
I double checked the book, but I couldn't find anything about that. Hunter Davie never said that. Where did you get that?
"He also had another piece of tune in his head. This had started from the phrase, 'sitting in an English country garden'. This is what he does for at least two hours every day, sitting on the step outside his window looking at his garden. This time, thinking about himself doing it, he'd repeated the phrase over and over again till he'd put a tune to it."
I have a first edition of the book. It's on page 292, in the section 'The Beatles and their music'. Later editions may be different.
It doesn't matter if John Lennon played the piano or the organ or the Mellotron.
Actually, re EGG MAN/Eggman - if you read Eric Burdon's autobiography, it's a Jamaican girlfriend who cracked an egg on Burdon during sex. Whoever runs this site should change this in the body text because it now reads as though Burdon traditionally cracked eggs on his sex partners. Totally the opposite, and a one-time-deal, it appears. Burdon told the story to Lennon and Lennon laughingly said to Burdon: "Go on, go get it, Egg Man"
Thanks for the clarification. Any chance you could transcribe the relevant part of Eric's autobiography, so I can quote it in the article?
==Warning: adult themes==
"It may have been one of my more dubious distinctions, but I was the Eggman--or, as some of my pals called me, 'Eggs'.
The nickname stuck after a wild experience I'd had at the time with a Jamaican girlfriend called Sylvia. I was up early one morning cooking breakfast, naked except for my socks, and she slid up beside me and slipped an amyl nitrate capsule under my nose. As the fumes set my brain alight and I slid to the kitchen floor, she reached to the counter and grabbed an egg, which she cracked into the pit of my belly. The white and yellow of the egg ran down my naked front and Sylvia slipped my egg-bathed cock into her mouth and began to show me one Jamaican trick after another. I shared the story with John at a party at a Mayfair flat one night with a handful of blondes and a little Asian girl.
"'Go on, go get it, Eggman,' Lennon laughed over the little round glasses perched on the end of his hook-like nose as we tried the all-too-willing girls on for size."
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
by Eric Burdon with J Marshall Craig
(Rowville, Victoria; 2003), pp. 61-62.
Thanks for transcribing that Deadman. My, what a fruity tale (although fruity isn't really the right word in this case!).