Glass Onion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Glass Onion” | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||||
| Song by The Beatles | |||||
| Album | The Beatles | ||||
| Released | 22 November 1968 | ||||
| Recorded | 11 September 1968 | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Length | 2:17 | ||||
| Label | Apple Records | ||||
| Writer | Lennon/McCartney | ||||
| Producer | George Martin | ||||
| The Beatles track listing | |||||
|
Side one
Side two
Side three
Side four
|
|||||
| Love track listing | |||||
|
|||||
"Glass Onion"[1] is a song by The Beatles from The White Album primarily written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney. The song references "I Am the Walrus", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Lady Madonna", "The Fool on the Hill", "There's A Place", "Within You Without You", and "Fixing a Hole".
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.[2] 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. Ironically, the line is preceded with "Well, here's another clue for you all".
Lennon was asked if there was a deeper 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.[3] | ” |
This is the first track on the White Album to feature Ringo Starr on drums. Starr briefly left the group after an altercation, being replaced on drums by McCartney on both "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence".
[edit] Personnel
- John Lennon – double-tracked vocal, piano
- Paul McCartney – bass, 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
- Alex Ashtiani – banjo
- Credits per Ian MacDonald[4]
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Glass onion" is British slang for a monocle.
- ^ Wenner, Jann S (2000). Lennon Remembers (Full interview from Lennon's 1970 interview in Rolling Stone magazine). London: Verso, 87. ISBN 1-85984-600-9.
- ^ The Beatles (2000). Anthology, page 306.
- ^ MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, Second Revised Edition, London: Pimlico (Rand), 311-314. ISBN 1-844-13828-3.
