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John Lennon’s answer to those who looked for hidden meanings in The Beatles' music was “Glass Onion”, a song deliberately filled with red herrings, obscure imagery and allusions to past works.

Fully aware of the power of The Beatles' own mythology, and with a general dislike of those who over-interpreted his work, Lennon deliberately inserted references to “I Am The Walrus”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Lady Madonna”, “The Fool On The Hill” and “Fixing A Hole”.

The effect is a kaleidoscopic look through the group’s back pages. “Lady Madonna”, whose protagonist reappears in “Glass Onion”, contained a reference to “I Am The Walrus” (“See how they run”).

That song, in turn, featured the line “See how they fly like Lucy in the sky”, a clear reference to Sgt. Pepper’s psychedelic masterpiece. The effect is of a continual strand running through The Beatles' works, even if such a strand was never intended in the first place.

Lennon: That’s me, just doing a throwaway song, à la ‘Walrus,’ à la everything I’ve ever written. I threw the line in – ‘the Walrus was Paul’ – just to confuse everybody a bit more. And I thought Walrus has now become me, meaning ‘I am the one.’ Only it didn’t mean that in this song.
Playboy: Why a walrus?
Lennon: It could have been ‘the fox terrier is Paul,’ you know. I mean, it’s just a bit of poetry. It was just thrown in like that.“
All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, by David Sheff

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The first song written by Ringo Starr for the Beatles, “Don’t Pass Me By” is “a rudimentary invention in country-and-western style embellished with bluegrass violin”, according to Beatles writer Ian MacDonald. It also serves as a major landmark in the maturing of the Beatles, as the first song on which Ringo Starr wrote the lyrics. He had previously performed songs given to him by the songwriting duo of McCartney-Lennon, or covers of old rock & roll standards.

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Written by Lennon and McCartney in the studio, largely on the spot off the top of their heads. Paul was the main songwriter, coming up with the riff and most of the lyrics. According to him,

We thought, “Why not make something up?” So we got a riff going and arranged it around this riff. So that is 50-50 John and me, made up on the spot and recorded all in the same evening.

Lennon later sort of disowned the song:

I think Paul wanted a song like “Happy Birthday Baby,” the old ’50s hit. … It was a piece of garbage.

The song is a riff-based straightforward rock and roll piece that went on the opposite direction of most Beatles songs of the time. Pattie Harrison and Yoko Ono provide backing vocals.

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Sir Walter Raleigh was the man responsible for popularizing tobacco in Great Britain. John Lennon ostensibly blames this man for his cigarette addiction.

“Git” is British slang for a stupid or contemptible person.

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This refers to the song, “Fixing a Hole” and is another image for a fool’s errand. This beginning line of the stanza is also the second reference by Lennon to a song written by Paul.

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This refers to the McCartney-penned tune, “Lady Madonna.

Lennon expressed some disdain for the song when he said:

“Good piano lick.
But the song never went anywhere.
Maybe I helped him on some of the lyrics,
but I’m not proud of them either way…
.”

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This refers to the “Cast Iron Shore,” a coastal area of south Liverpool known to local people as “The Cazzy.” Comprising the stretch of the Mersey shore from the Dingle (where Ringo hails from) to Otterspool, this estuary landscape is eerily amphibious—with it’s ocean on one side, and foundry on the other.

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It was John wearing the walrus costume in “I Am the Walrus.” In any event, everyone knew that it was John who sang the line “I Am the Walrus”, so this line of “Glass Onion” is John’s way of saying, “look, I’m clearly lying to you right now, why would you trust the rest of these lyrics?”

Despite accusations that the lyric was a–genuine or ironic–clue for the “Paul is Dead” urban legend, Lennon himself dismissed it as a piece of poetry. And actually it wouldn’t make that much sense, as the “theory” only became popular in 1969.

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Lennon mocks his trigger-happy attitude. No one questioned whether or not the act he committed was sin. His macho, heroic act seemed to redeem the terrible crime to nature that he so effortlessly endured. It also goes back to the comic portrayal of his overbearing mother, attempting to justify the killing.

This is also the first time a woman or non-Beatle performed lead vocals in a Beatles track, in this case it being Yoko Ono, Lennon’s muse and later wife.

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Evidently, Cooke and his mother got along well with all of the Beatles aside from Lennon. Lennon, in turn, looked down on Cooke, especially when he shot a tiger on impulse. Lennon was inspired to write a song that mocked Cooke’s bravado.

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