When Lennon's friend and former Quarrymen member Peter Shotton visited him, he supplied some verses based on a playground nursery rhyme. The walrus was inspired by Lewis Carroll's poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from his book "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" (1871). Lennon had read the poem as a child and been particularly intrigued by the part where the walrus eats the carpenter's wife. He decided to write a song about it and gave the verse to Shotton to complete. According to John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, the couple often used nonsense words when they wrote songs together. The word "walrus" appears in one of these poems written by Ono. In the poem, she writes: "A walrus is an elephant with a nose hair." In another version, she calls it a "tuskless walrus". Either way, it's clear that she is referring to the creature from Carroll's poem not to be confused with the actual animal. Later on, Paul McCartney added bass lines to the song that made it more suitable for a jazz band setting. The Walrus was first played by John Lennon in a live performance on October 30, 1960 at the Casanova Club in Liverpool, England. Lennon would later say that the song was about death.