“I Am the Walrus” is one of The Beatles’ most bizarre and surreal tracks. The song was written by John Lennon, who, according to Paul McCartney, also provided many of the weirder moments that improved the track.
John Lennon wrote “I Am the Walrus” on two acid trips
“I Am the Walrus” debuted in 1967 as a part of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour movie and album. The song features some of the band’s more surreal and nonsensical lyrics. The track was inspired by the work of Lewis Carroll, specifically The Walrus and the Carpenter story from Through the Looking Glass. In the 1980 Playboy interview, John Lennon said the inspiration for “I Am the walrus” came to him during two acid trips.
“The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko,” Lennon shared. “Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna. All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular. The reference to ‘Element’ry penguin’ is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, ‘Hare Krishna,’ or putting all your faith in any one idol.”
Paul McCartney revealed how Lennon improved the song
Besides the lyrics, “I Am the Walrus” has weird moments with the background music and effects. The track ends with a long section of distorted radio and feint voices repeating, “Everybody’s got one.” There is also a moment where random voices laugh, going “Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, hah hah hah.” In an interview with Clash, McCartney revealed John Lennon pitched these moments during the preparatory sessions for “I Am the Walrus.”
“I think in a way, for instance something like ‘I Am The Walrus’, someone like John probably doesn’t get enough credit, because those sessions, those preparatory sessions, were very important because they set the style and often gave very accurate briefs of what we wanted. For instance, all of John’s ‘Everybody’s got one’ and ‘Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, ha ha ha,’ all that stuff was from John at a session with George Martin, a preparation session. We’d be around at John’s house or George’s house, and he’d say, ‘I want to go, ‘Ha ha ha.’’ So, George would write that all that in the score, and John would sort of say, ‘Well, it could go like that or like that,’ but we couldn’t write so we needed George to translate our thoughts.”
Lennon’s additions make the track more chaotic
These additions to “I Am the Walrus” showed how bizarre John Lennon’s imagination could get, especially when experimenting with psychedelic drugs. The laugh lyrics do an excellent job of emphasizing the line, “Don’t you think the joker laughs at you.” However, the final bit, with “Everybody’s got one,” is borderline frightening.
It’s a descent into chaos and madness as all these different noises surround the listener. Still, the song ends on a fitting note, considering how weird the rest of the lyrics are. It’s hard to explain, but it is an intriguing way of seeing how Lennon’s mind worked during that time.
