I have recently fallen back in love with The Beatles. No doubt next week it’ll be something different – perhaps SClub or something equally poor – but at the moment it’s all about those Scouse legends.
But one acid-inspired song has got me as confused as the first time I heard it: I am The Walrus.
To quote the final line of the chorus: “I am the eggman, they are the eggmen. I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob.
Not for me to question John Lennon’s wisdom – but to me, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Wikipedia, the master of all knowledge, makes a vague reference about the walrus being from a Lewis Carroll poem and being an indictment of capitalism, but I’m not convinced.
In an apparent attempt to compete with The Beatles’ surrealism, T. Rex came up with one or two questionable lines themselves.
In Main Man they proudly proclaimed:
“Is there a sane man anywhere, anywhere?
Got giraffes in my hair
And I don’t care
No I don’t care, no I don’t care”
You’ve got to be having a giraffe, right?
Neil Young is undoubtedly a living legend, a musical genius, but his lyrics often failed to follow through logic. For example, Crime in the City:
“Then I grew up to be a fireman
Put out every fire in town
Put out anything smokin’
But when I put the hose down
The judge sent me to prison
He gave me life without parole
Wish I never put the hose down
Wish I never got old.”
Surely, if true, that has to be one of the most serious cases of injustice in history.
And finally, REM’s You Are Everything:
“Late spring and you’re drifting off to sleep
With your teeth in your mouth.”
Now, unless you have dentures, where else are your teeth going to be?
So there’s the plain strange, and I can understand that. They’re open to interpretation. And that’s good, it encourages some thoughtful thinking and two listeners could easily come to a different conclusion.
But I’m afraid I have to draw the line at the blatantly incorrect. That, surely, is just sheer laziness.
Vanessa Williams in Save The Best for Last sings:
“Sometimes the snow comes down in June”
Okay, a bit implausible, but not quite over the line.
“Sometimes the sun goes ’round the moon”
No, Vanessa, that just never happens.
Maybe I just lack the musical wisdom to fully appreciate these bizarre statements. I have, after all, never being able to so much as play twinkle twinkle on any instrument.
Or maybe, as I largely suspect, these people are just plain bonkers.
