The Surprisingly Explicit Inspiration Behind the Beatles Lyrics “I Am the Eggman”

The Beatles were certainly no strangers to writing nonsense lyrics for their songs like “Come Together” and “I Am The Walrus,” but legend has it that a surprisingly explicit reality inspired the latter, particularly in lines like I am the eggman, they are the eggman, I am the walrus.

Indeed, if we’re to believe the rowdy tales of the Animals frontman Eric Burdon, “I Am The Walrus” is as NSFW as it is psychedelic.

The Animals Frontman Claims To Be The Original Eggman

In Eric Burdon’s 2001 memoir, the Animals frontman claims in no uncertain terms that he was the original “Eggman” behind the Beatles’ iconic “I Am The Walrus” chorus. Calling it one of his “more dubious distinctions,” Burdon said some friends also called him Eggs based on a poultry-related sexual encounter he had with a girlfriend. 

“I was up early one morning cooking breakfast, naked except for my socks, and she slid up behind me and cracked an amyl nitrate capsule under my nose,” Burdon wrote. “As the fumes set my brain alight, and I slid to the kitchen floor, she reached to the counter and grabbed an egg, which she broke into the pit of my belly.” (You’ll have to use your imagination—or read the memoir—to get the full, slimy scope of this eggy encounter.)

Burdon said he later shared the story with John Lennon at a party. While the two men were approaching a few women also in attendance, Lennon teased Burdon. The Animals singer wrote: “‘Go on, go get it, Egg Man,’ Lennon laughed over the little round glasses perched on the end of his hook-like nose.” Sometime later, Lennon worked this moniker into the refrain of his iconic 1967 ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ track.

John Lennon Wrote Some “I Am The Walrus” Lyrics Out Of Spite

It’s not hard to imagine the perpetually cheeky Beatles musician using an explicit encounter as inspiration for his lyrics, nor is it hard to imagine Lennon writing some lyrics out of spite. According to Lennon’s childhood friend Pete Shotton, that’s precisely how he crafted some of his zanier one-liners in “I Am The Walrus.” In Shotton’s book The Beatles, Lennon, And Me, he recalled Lennon digging through his daily mail bag and finding a letter from a student at their alma mater, Quarry Bank.

The fan told Lennon that his Quarry Bank teacher was playing Beatles songs in class for the students to analyze. “This, of course, was the same institution of learning whose headmaster had summed up young Lennon’s prospects with the words: ‘This boy is bound to fail,’” Shotton wrote. “John and I howled with laughter over the absurdity of it all.” Lennon asked Shotton about an old childhood rhyme they used to sing at school: Yellow matter custard, green slop pie, all mixed together with a dead dog’s eye.

Thus, the fourth verse of “I Am The Walrus” was born. “Inspired by the picture of that Quarry Bank literature master pontificating about the symbolism of Lennon-McCartney, John threw in the most ludicrous images his imagination could conjure,” Shotton continued. “He thought of ‘semolina’ (an insipid pudding we’d been forced to eat as kids) and ‘pilchard’ (a sardine we often fed to our cats). ‘Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower…,’ John intoned, writing it down with considerable relish. He turned to me, smiling. ‘Let the f****** work that one out, Pete.”

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