Thursday, December 08, 2005

goo goo ga joob!


i am the walrus

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 cornflake 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 eggman
they are the eggmen
I am the walrus Goo goo ga joob!

Mr. 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!

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 eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus Goo goo ga 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 eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus Goo goo ga joob!

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
Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna man, you should have seen them
kicking Edgar Allan Poe

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus Goo goo ga joob!

... i think everything i have to say about today has already been posted here in the w'room (see john lennon's birthday post). i was gonna do this on a different day, but since it is the 25th anniversary of that fateful day ... well, it's as good as any ...

awhile back we did a post on all the various versions we found of 'strawberry fields forever', and never a blog to not beat a dead horse silly, we decided to flog it somemore ... only changing it up with another lennon song, 'i am the walrus'. it is arguably one of the strangest songs the beatles recorded as a band (revolution 9 notwithstanding as that was more of a lennon solo project). and to me 'the walrus' is still one of the most powerful pieces of music i have ever heard ....

the way i remember this was from late 1967. my aunt lived in an apartment in vegas, when vegas was a real desert. the only building nearby was a record distributor warehouse. sometimes, late at night, she would drag me over there and heft me into the fenced-in garbage bin to fetch anything of value i could pillage. i would heave out posters, various crappy 45's and sometimes lp's, with or without the vinyl. a few times we really scored, but mostly it was just a futile attempt at fun ... well, naw, it was fun.

on one morning just before christmas one of the neighbor kids came 'round saying there were records all over the desert. we ran out to find copies of i am the walrus scattered around the building just melting in the sun. we scrabbled up as many as we could, and tho' some were still in the sleeve, almost all of them were bent, warped or scratched. i had vaulted the fence, and was finding more in the trash. i kept tossing to the others when i reached under the bin and pulled out a pristine copy not touched by the sun, it was the only one, and that was the one i kept. i must have played that record a million times in the two weeks or so before i found 'magical mystery tour' under the tree (i knew 'hello goodbye' was the flip, but that wasn't the point, was it?).

well, i still got that 45, buried somewhere in the archives, where it'll prob be until payton needs to cash in his inheritance ... thanks for the memories john.

john winston ono lennon oct 9, 1940 - dec 8, 1980


and in honor of the man that wrote that nonsensically wonderful ditty here are presented a shitload of the walrus, in mp3, and only around for a lil while via yousendit:

the beatles - i am the walrus (take 1)
the thurston lava tube - i am the walrus
spookytooth - i am the walrus
oingo boingo - i am the walrus
jim carrey - i am the walrus
oasis - i am the walrus
gray matter - i am the walrus
crack the sky - i am the walrus
louis clarke - i am the walrus (wma file)
styx - i am the walrus
eekoostk hooka - i am the walrus
the canadien brass - i am the walrus
frank zappa - i am the walrus
swingle singers - i am the walrus
jackl - i am the walrus
phish - i am the walrus
xtc - i am the walrus

and, of course, some really cool walrus wanna-bees -
the dukes of stratosphear - the mole in the ministry
the rutles - piggy in the middle
tears for fears - sowing the seeds of love

... and if ya got bigger balls than me you can mix a paul tune

9 comments:

Jim Marquis said...

Great stuff. My buddy and I went through a brief Crack the Sky phase back in the mid-Seventies...I was really into what I considered the "smart" bands of that era. And "Sowing the Seeds of Love" still gives me goosebumps!

Laurie said...

Sounds like great memories. Do you know why that guy was throwing out all the I Am The Walrus records?

sleepybomb said...

mr van dyke, you wiley ol' bastard, i forgot about the walrus pod thingy, did you really down all these? i think my new fave version is that blistering surf rendition by the lava tube dudes, outrageous!

j-man, i did sorta the same thing at the same time. lotsa of diff stuff rode the turntable back then, but i think we called it art-rock, but still in the same vein. i was really into bands like 'yes' ... gentle giant, flash, king crimson, roxy music ... and i think 'sowing ...' is the best tears song of all, but it all seems beatlesque in a way.

ms. L, i really don't know how they got there. i would think the guy just like the old fab 4 better than the freaky new beatles. there was always stuff found around that place, but that day we found about 50 walrus singles ... there were a few ripped up capitol boxes laying about too. it looked like someone was very made at the boys ...

Tim said...

I've lived longer than John and done so much less...

Peace, and thanks for the happy diversions.

sleepybomb said...

i feel that way also, he did so much in the short time he was here, and he was on a 5 year break too. and to have his shit so relevent today ...

Johnno said...

I have two favourites. The Walrus and A Day in the Life. I first heard "I am the Walrus" travelling 100 miles home in the car from the "Under a Blood Red Sky" U2 concert in 84 in my teenager years. It made a bigger impression than the U2 concert.

An aside....Taking the Beatles argument to Tarantino's , "You're either an Elvis or a Beatles fan."

There are those who like earlier Beatles and those who like the latter.

I'm in the latter camp. I know a couple of older British women who were in Britain during the swinging 60's....and they say they like the Beatles, until they came up with the Walrus stuff.

Danno said...

I was 6 years old when J.L. was killed, but I still remember coming home and seeing the look on my Dad's face, like he had been kicked in the stomach. Like most he found out from Howard Cosell, while watching the football game.
Whenever I go to New York, I always walk by "the spot" at The Dakota and cross C.P. West to the Strawberry Fields Memorial, and I always leave affected, and feeling, well, really rotten; it's just so damned sad, the whole mess. There is no other way to describe it.

Being a big Lennon fan, I was just contemplating how myself and others would represent his message of peace if confronted with Mark David Chapman in an empty room.
Unfortunately, I have a few penned up Goo Goo Ga Joob's for that dirty Mofo! I wish I could be a more forgiving person, but F him, I hope he dies in jail.

sonicfrog said...

I am going to get spanked for this... but I HATE that song. I think it is the worst thing they ever did!

OK, the "Number Nine" song was the worst, but this was the second.

sleepybomb said...

yeah john, there are really two camps of beatle fans, not just walrus, it's more a pre and post drugs. altho they were partaking as soon as 'rubber soul', it wasn't apparent until sgt pepper (altho an argument could be made for 'revolver', tho it was a more subtle appearance) ... i too love the later years more than the teenybopper stuff, but any early beatles even bests the shit out now.

danno you sneaky dog, i did not even know you went to the dakota. it is one of our fave spots in the worls when traveling. one night on a drunken whim i tried to bullshit my way into the place, to no avail, and eneded up at strawberry just walking in circles around 'imagine', and have done it twice since. i may get in the 3rd time, it's a charm i'm told.

and mikey, no one will spank you here (unless you really like it). ahhhh, just look above, you just happen to like the easy stuff. the walrus was anything but easy. and the walrus was an eye-opening tune to a 12 year-old-virgin (barely), and is still a hugely complex piece of music that does what was intended, make people talk about it ... john once commented it would be discussed a hundred years from then, (in 1967) and he is 1/2 right, so far ... (my bet is it will be chatted and dissed til end of days ...).

i need a shrimp po-boy now!