‘I Am the Walrus’: The Beatles song George Martin never understood
Most artists can only hope to have the kind of emotional translator The Beatles had in George Martin. Even though none of them were properly trained in how to read music, bringing in Martin to produce helped them fine-tune their songs into classics, whether that was adding strings on a certain tune or having him sit in on piano when working on some of their early tunes. The producer did have his limits though, and when combing back through the biggest hits of their career, Martin eventually had no time to work on this classic.
Then again, nothing was that off the table when it came to Martin’s work. He had been ready for anything when the Fab Four started going through their psychedelic period, and when they started suggesting everything from putting backwards loops into their songs to making bold sonic reinventions like on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, it was up to Martin to take the basis of what they wanted and turn it into something plausible.
And a lot of it tended to be a gamble as well. People marvel at the insane loops running through the mid-section of ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ that came from them mixing the tape up in random directions and putting it back onto the track, resulting in that hypnotic effect that made everything feel like some demented three-ring circus.
While John Lennon was the instigator of making things sound weird on tunes like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, he reached a new height when working on ‘I Am the Walrus’. Although the tune was clearly indebted to acid, Martin was in for a big surprise when Lennon came in with the idea for a song that only revolved around two notes for the melody and went through fairly random sections.
There had been some strange propositions before, like basing an entire song off of one chord, but after hearing about Lennon’s plans for the piece, Martin thought he was in over his head. Despite making creative strides on ‘A Day in the Life’, this was where things went a step too far into pure madness.
When recounting the session, engineer Geoff Emerick remembered Martin being flabbergasted at the idea of working on the tune, saying, “For once, he was at a loss for words. [He said], ‘Well, John, to be honest, I have only one question. What the hell do you expect me to do with that?’ [He] simply couldn’t get past the limited musical content and outrageous lyrics; he flat out didn’t like the song.”
If this was the height of weird, though, Martin had no idea what was coming when Lennon started letting his freak flag fly with Yoko Ono. Although the band would spread their wings even more on The White Album, the fact that Martin suggested that it should be paired down to a single album may come from ‘Revolution 9’ making the track listing, complete with some of the most random pieces ever put on a Fab release.
Still, ‘I Am the Walrus’ is one of the cases where the randomness plays to the song’s advantage. Some pieces go off at fairly strange times, but it’s all in service to Lennon’s acid-fuelled trip into Wonderland. It’s not exactly easy listening, but if there was one thing that most knew about The Beatles at that point, it was that they never took the easy route.
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