Song Of The Week - Glass Onion

[nimrod]

I told you 'bout strawberry fields
You know the place where nothing is real
Well, here's another place you can go
Where everything flows

Looking through the bent backed tulips
To see how the other half live
Looking through a glass onion

I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man
You know that we're as close as can be, man
Well, here's another clue for you all
The walrus was Paul

Standing on the cast iron shore, yeah
Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet, yeah
Looking through a glass onion

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Looking through a glass onion

I told you 'bout the fool on the hill
I tell you man he living there still
Well, here's another place you can be
Listen to me

Fixing a hole in the ocean
Trying to make a dovetail joint, yeah
Looking through a glass onion



Glass Onion" is a song by the Beatles from their 1968 double-album The Beatles primarily written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. This is the first track on the album to feature Ringo Starr on drums. Starr briefly left the group during recording sessions for the album and was replaced on drums by Paul McCartney on both "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence."

The song refers to several earlier Beatles songs, including "Strawberry Fields Forever", "I Am the Walrus", "Lady Madonna", "The Fool on the Hill" and "Fixing a Hole". The song also refers to the "Cast Iron Shore," a coastal area of south Liverpool known to local people as "The Cazzy".

The song's "the Walrus was Paul" lyric is both a reference to "I Am the Walrus" and Lennon saying "something nice to Paul" in response to changes in their relationship at that time. Later, the line was interpreted as a "clue" in the "Paul is dead" urban legend that alleged 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. The line is preceded with "Well, here's another clue for you all".

Lennon himself dismissed any deep meaning to the mysterious lyrics:

" 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 gobbledygook about Pepper—play it backwards and you stand on your head and all that


Personnel

John Lennon – double-tracked vocals, acoustic guitar
Paul McCartney – bass guitar, piano, recorder
George Harrison – lead guitar
Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine
George Martin – string arrangement
Henry Datyner – violin
Eric Bowie – violin
Norman Lederman – violin
Ronald Thomas – violin
John Underwood – viola
Keith Cummings – viola
Eldon Fox – cello
Reginald Kilby – cello
Personnel per Ian MacDonald

[Hombre_de_ningun_lugar]

I've always liked the song and its sound. It's not one of the best songs of the White Album though, just generic rock music.

[Dcazz]

Interesting thing about the "clue" for you all lyric was written over a year before the story broke in late 1969.

[Moogmodule]

It's a cool song. As Hombre says, fairly standard rock. But done well. Has that gritty Cold Turkey sound to it.

[KelMar]

Interesting thing about the "clue" for you all lyric was written over a year before the story broke in late 1969.

That is interesting Dave. This is a song I wasn't crazy about at first but the more I listened to it the better I liked it. This is a neat thread for lots of reasons but I particularly enjoy that it makes me look back and consider my Beatles journey over the years.

[nimrod]

Its very A Typical John Lennon isn't it..

I mean the lyrics & a hard edge to the sound

apparently a glass onion is a coffin with a glass lid - hence the Paul is dead thing again, John taking the piss  !

Ive always liked it, I don't like Cold Turkey even though I can see where moog is coming from but that is a bleak miserable song, this is fun and lighter in atmosphere

[Moogmodule]

There some good lyrics in it. I like the " bent back tulips" imagery. And yes it's certainly a cheerier song than Cold Turkey. Johns harder stuff always sounded better with the Beatles. I think they played it better than the Plastic Ono Band in whatever permutation.

I read once where a glass onion was possibly a crystal ball.

[Moogmodule]

I had a mate at school who hated Glass Onion. He couldn't stand how it referred to other songs. His hatred was such that the only Beatle record he actually had was the soundtrack to the old Broadway show Beatlemania. Which of course wasnt even the Beatles but imitators. His rather bizarre rationale was that it didnt have crap like Glass Onion on it. Why he simply didnt buy the Red and/or Blue compilations was beyond me.

[Hello Goodbye]

I heard this song for the first time a year before the Paul Is Dead rumor went viral.  "The walrus was Paul" line sent me studying the Magical Mystery Tour LP cover and booklet very closely.  We were already playing Revolution 9 forward and backward and at different speeds.  That was some album that white album!

I learned to like the song more over the following years.  When I heard the song for the first time in 1968, I had none of John's subsequent hard stuff to compare it to.  It had an odd ending and I was all smiles again when Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da began playing right after.

[Hello Goodbye]

Interesting thing about the "clue" for you all lyric was written over a year before the story broke in late 1969.

This is the album that got us searching for "clues" in earlier albums.  The ones I noticed in the Magical Mystery Tour booklet were Paul's black flower and the crack running through his head...

[Klang]

Nice shift in gear on the record. The lyrics used to put me off. It was obvious that John was poking fun at the "deeper meaning" searching, but to what end? Kind of a waste of real estate in my young opinion. Now I see it as an irreplaceable piece of the whole puzzle. The album itself, that is.

[oldbrownshoe]

It's remarkable that a song with as crisp a production as 'Glass Onion' can exist on an LP, albeit a double, with a song as defiantly lo-fi as 'Long, Long, Long'. I love the way it sequences into 'Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da' as well.

[tkitna]

It's remarkable that a song with as crisp a production as 'Glass Onion' can exist on an LP, albeit a double, with a song as defiantly lo-fi as 'Long, Long, Long'.

This is true. The album was all over the place production and quality wise.

Glass Onion is a pretty decent tune. Love Ringo's drum sound. The song itself has a nice beat and is enjoyable enough. I guess its a middle of the road song for me.

[Hombre_de_ningun_lugar]

It's funny that John confused the name of the song during an interview in 1980.

PLAYBOY: "Do you find that the clamor for a Beatles reunion has died down?"

LENNON: "Well, I heard some Beatles stuff on the radio the other day and I heard 'Green Onion' ...no, 'Glass Onion,' I don't even know my own songs! I listened to it because it was a rare track..."

PLAYBOY: "That was the one that contributed to the 'Paul McCartney is dead' uproar because of the lyric 'The walrus is Paul.'"

LENNON: "Yeah. That line was a joke, you know. That line was put in partly because I was feeling guilty because I was with Yoko, and I knew I was finally high and dry. In a perverse way, I was sort of saying to Paul, 'Here, have this crumb, have this illusion, have this stroke... because I'm leaving you.' Anyway, it's a song they don't usually play. When a radio station has a Beatles weekend, they usually play the same ten songs... 'A Hard Day's Night,' 'Help!,' 'Yesterday,' 'Something,' 'Let It Be' ...you know, there's all that wealth of material, but we hear only ten songs. So the deejay says, 'I want to thank John, Paul, George and Ringo for not getting back together and spoiling a good thing.' I thought it was a good sign. Maybe people are catching on."

[blmeanie]

I've gone back and forth on whether using song references was a slacker move, a song built in a few hours. 

In the end, the song, the lyrics,and the music all have to work together regardless of the subject matter.  I like it and included it in one of my youtube videos last year.

I use Beatle songs for two reasons, obviously a fan, and youtube doesn't pull the sound when you embed Beatles music in them like they do for other artists.

http://youtu.be/qWX-xjFpVIs