I am the Walrus

1650 words, 7 minute read

Unraveling the ‘inner meaning’ of popular lyrics can be a full time job…and then there’s the question of whether you’ve actually accomplished anything worthwhile when you’re done. The majority of folks believe that it’s a waste of time: “It’s music, man, just enjoy it,” or “Lyrics are lyrics, they don’t mean anything,” or “Who are you to tell me what the artist means?”

Literary criticism has fallen on hard times in this age of radical subjectivity and cultural relativism. And yet we labor on. In my view, popular music is a treasure trove for the philosophically curious. 

Few songs have more successfully resisted our deconstructive efforts than the Beatles’ classic, I Am the Walrus – in part because the Beatles themselves denounced efforts to analyze its lyrics. But there may be a deeper reason. The last thing you’d expect from the Beatles is a Christology that is every bit as crisp and clear as anything you’ll find in the New Testament. After all, John Lennon himself would later write, “Imagine there’s no heaven…and no religion too.”

Stunningly then, Walrus opens with a verbatim ‘translation’ of John 14: 20 (I am in my

father, and you are in me, and I am in you):

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…

‘I’ (the Walrus), of course, is Christ. He is one with his father (I am he), as we are one with the Father (as you are he); we are also one with Christ (as you are me) e.g. in Eucharist; and we are all together in the Holy Spirit, in Christ’s Mystical Body, in the Church, and in the Kingdom of Heaven. Newly elected Pope Leo XIV reprised this theme when he chose for his coat of arms the motto : In Illo Uno Unum (In the One, One).

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. 

On the surface, these lyrics seem nothing more than a chef’s signature word salad; but there’s plenty of ‘dog whistle’ philosophy in these verses. First, there’s profound contempt for ‘civil authority’ (the police) and its client and principal beneficiary, ‘corporate culture’; then there’s a nod to the ‘nun-of-this-and-nun-of-that’ morality of the Decalogue and the rest of the Torah. 

In the 1960’s boys were still expected to assume society’s leadership roles. ‘A long face’ was the first sign that a boy might not be adjusting to society’s expectations. Ditto ‘crying’. ‘Fake it ‘till you make it’ might have been our motto growing up. Remember, “You better not pout, you better not cry…” but there’s a whole lota cryin’ goin’ on in this song. Feeling adrift? Not to worry. The chorus will get you back onside:

I am the egg man. They are the egg men. I am the walrus.

As clearly as the opening verse expounds Christology, this chorus represents Ecclesiology. The ‘egg man’, of course, is Jesus and the ‘egg men’ are his disciples, specifically his 12 apostles, the cornerstone of his church.

But why ‘egg man’ specifically? Just as an egg is the ‘incarnation of a chicken’, so Jesus is the Incarnation of God. (Creation : Incarnation :: Chicken : Egg). The egg is a potent symbol of resurrection, rebirth, and regeneration (the Easter Egg) so it is an apt symbol for the dawn of a ‘new age’. Remember, Jesus is said to usher in the Age of Pisces (the fish). (This is probably what lured the Zoroastrian Magi to Christ’s manger.) It’s 0 CE, it’s springtime in the Zodiac!

And then there’s that other ‘egg man’, you know, Mr. H. Dumpty. Like Humpty, Jesus was fragile. Humpty fell, Jesus was pushed (i.e. crucified), but like Humpty, he broke. But whereas “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again”, Jesus rose in tact (‘body and spirit’) from the dead!

And ‘the egg men’? Jesus’ apostles, of course. Why ‘egg men’? Because they followed the Big Egg and like the Big Egg, they were martyred (except for John…and Judas of course).

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.

From the beginning, Christianity has had a love/hate relationship with civil authority. On the one hand, “my kingdom is not of this world (and) render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” but on the other hand, it was civil and ecclesiastical authority that crucified Jesus and martyred his apostles. 

According to Thomas Aquinas and other Christian theologians (Protestant as well as Catholic), civil authority is legitimate… just as long as it doesn’t conflict with God’s Values (e.g. Justice): “Render unto God what is God’s.” I doubt if the antics of UK police c. 1967 met this criterion. Still, celebrating the police ‘running’ is on the revolutionary side for the Beatles. After all, we’re not talking Barry McGuire here!

Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye, crabalocker fishwife, pornographicpriestess, boy, you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down.

Of all the controversial themes embedded in Walrus, it was this verse that caught the ear of the censors and got the song banned by the BBC. In Puritanical London even more compulsory than male privilege was female propriety: ‘Keep your knickers on, girlie (sic)’. 

But there was one thing even worse than male petulance or female promiscuity: gender ambivalence (“boy, you’ve been a naughty girl”). In the immortal words of Archie Bunker, “And you knew who you were then, girls were girls and men were men”… on both sides of the Atlantic!

Of course, the Egg Man and his Egg Men sublimate all such division. No more male privilege, no more female propriety, no more rigid segregation (by gender…or anything else). “In the One (Christ), we are One.” – Leo XIV  Here the chorus repeats, once again clawing us back from the edge of a semantic abyss; and then…

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.

“Waiting for the sun” is the lot of every English man or woman…and of every Christian. Intentionally or not, Jesus left the early Church with an expectation of Apocalypse Soon, i.e. the Second Coming of Christ. It hasn’t happened…yet!

Christians have come to terms with this elongated time frame by recognizing ‘anticipation and patience’ as salvific in their own right. In the same way, English men and women have come to terms with their weather…and take pride in it.

The chorus returns, this time with an added twist:

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 (good pity).

The chorus has acquired a chorus of its own. In the background, someone is paraphrasing text from Isaiah (the ‘Suffering Servant’)…or is it from King Lear? Or are they reimagining the conversations that took place at the foot of the cross on Good Friday? 

Expert, texpert choking smokers, don't you think the joker laughs at you. See how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide, I'm crying.

The first 4 words of this verse sum up the entire human condition at the end of the Industrial Revolution: fragmentation of labor, technocracy, industrial pollution, and our own unhealthy strategies for relieving stress (e.g. smoking). The Joker, of course, is none other than Satan himself; and why shouldn’t he laugh? An entire culture is effectively discarding God’s gift of life in pursuit of vain pleasures and empty honors.

Semolina Pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel tower; elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna, man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe.

Referring specifically to this final verse, John Lennon himself called it gibberish. Reportedly, he was trying to thwart folks like us who tend to ‘over-analyze’ his lyrics. But others have found meaning in these words.

Pilchard might be a reference to Sgt. Pilchard of the London Met, famous for his drug raids carried out against rock and roll celebrities. ‘Semolina’ (wheat flour) could be a disparaging reference to ‘Whitey’; but it could also signify a kind of anti-Eucharist, ‘the Eucharist of the anti-Christ’.

References to the Eifel Tower, penguins, and Hare Krishna may signal Lennon’s desire to extend the message of Walrus beyond the geographical and cultural limits of ‘Christian England’. And the alleged ‘kicking’ of Poe, quite possibly at the feet of the UK police (above), is emblematic of how post-industrial civilization treats its artists (e.g. Oscar Wilde). Like the Egg Men before him, Poe is the victim of ignorance and intolerance.

Satisfied? Maybe, but does anyone think this is really what John Lennon had in mind when he wrote Walrus? How should I know… does it make any difference? Absolutely not! Archibald MacLeish said that a poem (song) should not ‘mean’ but ‘be’. I agree. But if it ‘is’, then it has a life of its own, apart from the artist who created it. 

There are two ways that something can exist. It can ‘exist’ in reference to other things, in which case we say, “It means;” or it can exist by, in, and for itself, in which case we say, “It is”. If Walrus is, then it must ‘be’ and so it must be free to mean whatever it comes to mean: see above!

David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com.

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