I Am The Walrus

**I Am The Walrus** is a song by the English rock band The Beatles from their 1967 television film Magical Mystery Tour.

## Lyrics

I am he as you are he as you are me

And we are all together

See how they run like pigs from a gun

See how they fly

I'm crying

Sitting on a corn flake

Waiting for the van to come

Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday

Man you've been a naughty boy

You let your face grow long

I am the egg man

They are the egg men

I am the walrus

Goo goo g'joob

Mister City policeman sitting

Pretty little policemen in a row

See how they fly like Lucy in the sky, see how they run

I'm crying, I'm crying

I'm crying, I'm crying

Yellow matter custard

Dripping from a dead dog's eye

Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess

Boy, you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down

I am the egg man

They are the egg men

I am the walrus

Goo goo g'joob

Sitting in an English garden

Waiting for the sun

If the sun don't come you get a tan

From standing in the English rain

I am the egg man (now good sir)

They are the egg men (a poor man, made tame to fortune's blows)

I am the walrus

Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob (good pity)

Expert, texpert choking smokers

Don't you think the joker laughs at you (ho ho ho, hee hee hee, hah hah hah)

See how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide

I'm crying

Semolina Pilchard

Climbing up the Eiffel tower

Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna

Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe

I am the egg man

They are the egg men

I am the walrus

Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob

Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob, goo

Joob, joob, jooba

Jooba, jooba, jooba

Joob, jooba

Joob, jooba

Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper (jooba, jooba)

Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper

Everybody's got one (umpa, umpa)

Everybody's got one (stick it up your jumper)

Everybody's got one (umpa, umpa)

Everybody's got one (stick it up your jumper)

Everybody's got one (umpa, umpa)

Everybody's got one (stick it up your jumper)

Everybody's got one (umpa, umpa)

Everybody's got one (stick it up your jumper)

Everybody's got one (umpa, umpa)

Everybody's got one (stick it up your jumper)

Everybody's got one (umpa, umpa)

Slave

Thou hast slain me

Villain, take my purse

If I ever

Bury my body

The letters which though find'st about me

To Edmund Earl of Gloucester

Seek him out upon the British Party

## History

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.

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…” The third part of I Am The Walrus 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. 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.