The Complex Origins Behind the Seemingly Nonsensical Lyrics of The Beatles Song ‘I Am the Walrus’

Music essayist Noah Lefevre of Polyphonic examines the seemingly nonsensical song “I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles, noting that the lyrics are far more complex than they first seem.

‘I Am The Walrus’ is a master class in lyrical melody. The song is a veritable parade of earworms each perfectly popular with surreal phrases that roll easily off the tongue even without music….they’ve got a nursery rhyme sort of playfulness and that’s no accident “I Am The Walrus” was deliberately modeled after children’s schoolyard.

John Lennon intended for the song to be complete nonsense in response to a class being taught about lyrics by The Beatles. He told his friend Pete Shotton that he wanted the class to chew on the lyrics for a bit.

 Let the f*&kers work that one out

While he was a bit harsh on the class, Lennon did recant a bit, saying that the song did contain meaning and a lot of commentary during a 1981 Playboy interview.

The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko. 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. 

In the same interview, Lennon made reference to the Lewis Carroll poem “The Walrus and The Carpenter” which more than implied the origins of the song’s title.

It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social systems. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with The Beatles’ work. Later I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy I thought… I picked the wrong guy I should have said ‘I am the Carpenter’.