Buttkickin' Halloween Songs: "I Am The Walrus" -- The Beatles (1967)

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!

Because it’s October 31st, we return with our second of three Halloween Day additions to our Buttkickin Halloween Songs. We shouldn’t stop with just one final song. Today represents everything why we created this playlist to begin with.

So the party keeps going. And so do we.

And holy moley! We’re diving back into The Beatles well; what a freakin’ surprise of surprises.

If you’re worried I’m going to write yet another book about how much I love the Fab Four, rest assured I’ll restrict this post to something resembling a novella. Of sorts.

So let’s go. I Am The Walrus.

John Lennon wrote this masterpiece for the Magical Mystery Tour movie. If you’ve ever seen that particular piece of celluloid, you may remember two things: (1) what a bizarre, rambling, incoherent, often boring but sometimes fascinating POS that movie was, and (2) the I Am The Walrus video segment was easily the best part of the flick.

The song is brilliant, a majestic Lewis Carroll-like descent into absolute nonsense. Psychedelia and non-sequiturish imagery flies fast and strong among discordant strings, random sound clips, and swirling mellotrons. Within all of this we reach a quizzical ending which cascades into a mad vortex of repeated chants that have been the source of much debate and more than a bit of a BBC production of King Lear.

It’s all wonderful though, isn’t it? The music is so damn catchy and masterfully structured. Lennon has rarely sounded so confident and assured, a gleefully willing narrator guiding you into a mess of absurdity. Interpret the song however you want, really; when all is said and done, what you take from it is all yours.

Most likely I don’t have to sell you (or anyone) on I Am The Walrus. For John Lennon, it was another costume he put on as part of the Beatles circus. But then here we all are, transforming into Elementary Penguins and Pornographic Priestesses alongside him. Tanning ourselves in the English rain. Egg Men, every one of us. Goo Goo g’Joob.

O untimely death
I know thee well
A serviceable villain, as duteous to the vices of thy mistress
As badness would desire
What, is is he dead?
Sit you down, Father, rest you…