Sometimes I hear people characterize sarcasm as a character failing. Let me tell you, if it weren't for sarcasm, the greatest psychedelic song in history wouldn't have been written.
It was 1967, and the Beatles had just released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the high-water mark of psychedelic music at the time. They had spent years working up to that album, sticking a toe in with Rubber Soul. Getting to waist level with Revolver. Finally up to the eyeballs with Sgt. Pepper. Praise erupted the world over for that seminal album.
The only place to go was further. So the Beatles made the combo album/film Magical Mystery Tour. And with that, their heads disappeared into the clear, cleansing liquid.
In the midst of writing for Magical Mystery Tour, John Lennon got a letter from a student at his old high school. The student informed Lennon about a teacher leading interpretive readings of Beatles lyrics in his class. Though perhaps pleased, the only proper response for John was to begin writing the most unintelligible set of lyrics he had ever attempted. According to legend, after completing the song, Lennon muttered, "Let the fuckers work that one out."
His weaponized brain buster was "I Am the Walrus."
One of the Beatles' finest achievements: Pure sarcasm.
The music video for the song, featured in the Magical Mystery Tour film, is wackiness. As it opens, Paul arches backward and drives a pointer at Ringo Starr, and Ringo rat-a-tats his drum entrance. Paul understands innately that, for all of the complex instrumental layering on this song, the real foundation is that drum beat. Sometimes there is nothing so surreal as a basic four beat just fast enough not to be slow, just slow enough not to be fast.
There are so many details in this song, John's mission clearly went beyond lyrics and decided to throw about fifty kitchen sinks into the musical composition and production as well. To try and describe and interpret everything would just fall into the dumb trap John set for me. I'm not one of those fuckers.
But the sheer imagination boiling in this song means that in every measure there is an attraction. During the infinite ascending/descending scales of ending, the Shakespearean dialogue (King Lear) appearing was from a live radio broadcast that John and the engineers fed into the mix as they committed it to a master reel.
By the way, watch Magical Mystery Tour the movie if you haven't already. It's only about an hour long. The plot is infinitesimal. The dialogue is inscrutable. There are moments of pure sublime strangeness. The music videos are landmarks of the medium. It's kind of the Monty Python before Monty Python and MTV before MTV at the same time. And enjoy your spaghetti.