Glass Onion (song)
| "Glass Onion" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
"Glass Onion"[1] is a song by The Beatles from The Beatles (also known as The White Album) primarily written by John Lennon (albeit credited to Lennon-McCartney). The song is a response to those who attempted to find hidden meanings in Beatle songs, and references "I Am the Walrus, "Strawberry Fields Forever", "There's a Place", "I'm Looking Through You", "Within You Without You", "Lady Madonna", "The Fool on the Hill", and "Fixing a Hole".
The song's "The Walrus was Paul" lyric is both a reference to "I Am the Walrus" and John "saying something nice to Paul" in response to changes in their relationship at that time.[2] Later, the line was interpreted as a "clue" in the "Paul is dead" urban legend that alleged Paul McCartney died in 1966 during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and was replaced by a look-alike and sound-alike.
According to Lennon, "Glass Onion" was a throwaway song, much like "I Am the Walrus". "I threw the line in—'the Walrus was Paul'—just to confuse everybody a bit more. It could have been 'The fox terrier is Paul.' I mean, it's just a bit of poetry. I was having a laugh because there'd been so much gobbledegook about Pepper—play it backwards and you stand on your head and all that."[3]
This is the first track on the White Album to feature Ringo on drums. He had left the band briefly, so Paul drummed on "Back in the USSR" and "Dear Prudence".
Notes
- ^ "Glass onion" is British slang for a monocle.
- ^ ; Wenner, Jann. Lennon Remembers, Straight Arrow Press, 1971.
- ^ The Beatles. Anthology, p. 306, 2000.
