Who was the real “Eggman” from The Beatles song ‘I Am the Walrus’?
Among all the lines of goo goo g’jobbledygook sprinkled mischievously across the brazenly obscure lyrics of Beatles song ‘I Am the Walrus’, one term sticks out. John Lennon’s sudden pronouncement of his identity as “the Eggman” at the start of the chorus is arguably the most perplexing line of the entire song, on the face of it.
He certainly left a fair few critics determined to dismiss his lyrics as the ramblings of a madman with egg on their face, at least by deliberately conjuring up the maddest set of lyrics ever recorded. And yet, somehow, they make perfect sense in the context of the song, and are chock-full of literary allusions lurking beneath the surface.
Like author Lewis Carroll with his famous poem ‘Jabberwocky’, Lennon was aiming to prove that a great song could be composed out of what was ostensibly nonsense. And it’s no accident that the Beatle drew on Carroll’s work for many of the hidden meanings within the lyrics. The song’s titular “walrus” is actually one of the protagonists in Carroll’s allegorical poem ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’.
There, the animal represents a caricature of the Buddha as depicted in a religious context, given its rotund figure, tendency to repose in one position for great lengths of time, and lack of head hair. The Carpenter, meanwhile, is a reference to Jesus Christ, whose father, Joseph, worked in the trade according to biblical tradition. By referencing the Walrus from Carroll’s work, Lennon is drawing attention to the Buddhist teachings that were in fashion among Western intellectuals and participants in the psychedelic art scene at the time.
So, what about the “Eggman”?
Since the singer declares himself and others as “eggmen” immediately before uttering the titular phrase of ‘I Am the Walrus’, it’s reasonable to assume that the two things are related. “Eggman” sounds like a reworking of the term “egghead”, which is applied both to intellectuals and people with bald heads. Certain groups of Buddhist monks are known to shave their heads completely to reflect depictions of the Buddha himself as entirely bald.
Lennon appears to be identifying himself and other “eggmen” as adherents to the types of Buddhist teaching in vogue among the circles in which he mixed during 1967. In line with the spirit of Carroll’s original poem, Lennon appears to be mocking this kind of spiritualism with the tone of his song.
Much of the interest in Buddhism from British and American artists and thinkers at the time was just a fad that amounted to pseudo-intellectual, dilettante cultural appropriation with an orientalist bent, fetishising spiritual ideas that seemed wild and exotic to acid-trippers from a Christian tradition. Lennon’s instinct for subversion and wry sense of humour are in full effect as his “Walrus” lampoons these pretensions within the psychedelic movement.
Yet there’s an even bawdier comical context to the term “Eggman”. More than Buddhist monks, it primarily alludes to Eric Burdon, the lead singer of the British invasion group The Animals. Burdon had once let slip to Lennon at a London party that he was partial to involving a raw egg in sexual foreplay with his girlfriend. From that moment on, Lennon jokingly called him “Eggman” and worked the reference into his song.
Buddha and Burdon in the same lyric. Only John Lennon could attempt that and pull it off with aplomb.
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