I am the Walrus

Unraveling the ‘inner meaning’ of popular lyrics can be a full time job…and then there’s the  question of whether you’re actually accomplishing anything worthwhile in the process. The  majority of folks believe that our work is 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: “There has to be a pony at the bottom of this pile of…” In my view,  popular music is a treasure trove for the philosophically curious.  

Perhaps no popular song has 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. These lyrics are just about the last thing you’d expect from  the Beatles: a Christology that is as crisp and clear as anything you’ll find anywhere 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 ‘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… 

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV has reprised this theme with the motto he chose for his coat of  arms: In Illo Uno Unum (“In the One, One.”) 

Walrus also channels James Joyce, another ‘atheistic theologian’. We are immediately  reminded of Buck Mulligan intoning the words of the Eucharistic rite while standing atop the  Dublin Omphalos at the opening of Ulysses. 

‘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 as Christ’s

Mystical Body, as Church, and in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Ok, seems like we may be on a roll here… but we’re not! What follows next is a bunch of ‘dream  imagery’, possibly intended to parody the ‘less transparent’ parts of the Roman Catholic Liturgy: 

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.  

Again one thinks of Joyce: “Rite words in rote order.” (Finnegan’s Wake)

Clearly, any attempt at an ‘interlinear translation’ of the Walrus text is doomed to fail. But that  does not mean that the lyrics are nothing more than a chef’s signature word salad. There’s  plenty of ‘dog whistle’ philosophy woven into these verses. 

First, there is a 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, the 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. The egg is a potent symbol of resurrection, rebirth, and regeneration (the  Easter Egg). It is an apt symbol for the dawn of a ‘new age’. Remember, Jesus is said to usher in  the Age of Pisces. 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. 

The earlier symbols reappear. From the beginning, Christianity has had a love/hate relationship  with civil authority. On the one hand, “my kingdom is not of this world,” but on the other hand,  it was civil and ecclesiastical authority that crucified Jesus and martyred the apostles. 

According to Thoman Aquinas, civil authority is A-Okay as long as it doesn’t conflict with God’s  Values: 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, pornographic  priestess, 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 got the song banned  by the BBC. In Puritanical London the only thing more compulsory than male privilege was  female propriety: ‘Keep your knickers on, girlie (sic)’. 

Yet there was one thing even worse than male petulance and female promiscuity and that’s gender ambivalence. In the immortal words of Archie Bunker, “Girls were girls and men were  men”… on both sides of the Atlantic! 

Of course, the Egg Man and his Egg Men (sic) sublimate all such division in unity. 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 and 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! (Although current events do give rise to  speculation that it may be closer than we think.) 

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. 

The Beatles anticipated the Rolling Stones by 2 years: “You can’t always get what you want, but  if you try sometimes, you just might find…you get what you need.” 

The chorus returns, but 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 a chorus of its own. In the background, someone is paraphrasing text from Isaiah (the ‘Suffering Servant’)…or is it from Shakespeare’s 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.  I’d laugh too…if I wasn’t one of those people.

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

I’ve saved the worst for last! Referring just 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.  Perhaps we should take Lennon at this word. 

Others, however, 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 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. Like the Egg Men before him,  Poe is the victim of ignorance and intolerance. 

Satisfied? Ok, maybe, but does anyone think this is really what Lennon had in mind when he  wrote Walrus? How should I know…and does it make any difference anyway? 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 free to mean whatever it comes to mean, and then this exercise in  literary criticism is not in vain. 

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.

Return to our Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents