What did John Lennon mean by “Ah bowakawa, pousse pousse” in ‘#9 Dream’?
‘#9 Dream’ is the one song that stands above the rest on John Lennon’s scattergun fifth studio album, Walls and Bridges, comparing favourably with the very best of his solo compositions.
The entire record was the product of Lennon’s infamous ‘Lost Weekend’ in Los Angeles during the summer of 1974, a time when he shacked up with Yoko Ono’s secretary, May Pang, and went out on the town more routinely than a bouncer with Harry Nilsson. The resultant album, for better and for worse, reflects what he was going through.
‘#9 Dream’ is the solemn, contemplative hangover. The song features one of the Beatles’ former signature songwriting motifs, modulation down from a major scale with a minor-key chord mid-verse, which is accentuated by his use of a string arrangement. But it’s the chorus that really takes a leap into the otherworldly, as the key jumps up three whole tones and Lennon begins singing in a language foreign to our ears.
Plenty of other artists have been attracted to the song’s ethereal beauty, with both REM and José González performing worthy cover versions in the past two decades. Yet neither of their renditions shed any light on two lyrical lines that remain a mystery.
Just under two minutes into the track, as if from nowhere, Lennon jumps into the chorus, singing the ostensibly spiritual declaration, “Ah bowakawa, pousse pousse!” It feels as though we’re suddenly transported into another culture or even through a vortex into another dimension. All we know for sure is that the singer’s no longer speaking English to us.
So, what language is John Lennon speaking, then?
To the untrained ear, it might sound like Lennon is singing in an East Asian language during these lines. This would make a certain amount of sense since his romantic partner at the time, Pang, whose whispers and backing vocals feature throughout the track, was Chinese-American and the daughter of native Chinese speakers.
However, the language of these lyrics has nothing to do with East Asia. Or, indeed, any other part of the world. It originated entirely in an actual dream Lennon had while he was living with Pang. As she recalls on her website, “He woke up and wrote down those words along with the melody. He had no idea what it meant, but he thought it sounded beautiful.”
Lennon had initially pronounced the final word of the mysterious lines in question like he was saying “pussy, pussy”, which suggests that the phrase may have had its origins in Nilsson’s 1974 album Pussy Cats. He’d just finished producing his new friend’s album when he had his inspirational dream.
When Capitol Records tried to have the word removed from the lyrics on the grounds of obscenity, Lori Burton, the wife of Lennon’s sound engineer, who also sings backing vocals on the song, claimed that it was actually in a foreign language. And so, Lennon adopted a new pronunciation when he sang the word, akin to “poussé, poussé”.
Despite later dismissing the track as a songwriting exercise, he was clearly fond of it at the time he wrote it. Earlier in the ‘70s, he had partaken in Primal Scream therapy, whereby he yelled anything that came to mind during group sessions to quite literally get inner daemons off of his chest. This track can almost be seen as a latter-day extension of that outlook, meaning “Ah bowakawa, pousse pousse” is pure vocal expression.
Thusly, Pang has claimed it was one of Lennon’s favourites among his own compositions, and he took more time recording it than he did for any other track on the admittedly rather sloppy Walls and Bridges. In fact, its working title was the title of the album itself until the singer changed its name to ‘#9 Dream’ after the recording was completed.
He might have been inspired by Bob Dylan’s numbered dream songs on his early albums the previous decade. In any case, Lennon’s track has the genuine feel of a dream more than any of Dylan’s does. As for the number nine, it had always held special significance for the singer, even before the release of his composition ‘Revolution 9’ on The Beatles’ White Album. Lennon was born on the ninth day of the month and consequently had considered nine his lucky number since he was a child. So what better label to give his favourite musical dream?
So, why does it sound foreign?
The frequent misinterpretation that he was actually speaking a foreign language is another way in which the song stands out as one of his defining works, typifying the way he whisked all kinds of culture into his work without ever making it seem like pastiche or misappropriation.
“George Harrison, on his own, opened up India to England,” XTC guitarist Andy Partridge explains. “The man brings back a sitar and flirts with sitar lessons, and all of a sudden, India means things to people […] Single-handedly, George Harrison brought India to English consciousness. In a non-colonial and non-judgemental kind of way.”
Lennon likewise would open the world up to a wealth of different cultures, liberally exploring all possibilities within his art. There are few clearer examples of this than the way he somehow makes wailed nonsense touching on this strange and tortured track.
