"I Am the Walrus"

I'm sure this has been noted before, but I thought I'd write a post about it, if only for my own reference.  I've been reading Shakespeare's King Lear for the first time, and last week, I got to the parts in Act IV, Scene VI that are included near the end of "I Am the Walrus."

At ~2:25, fragments of this exchange (lines 223-224) can be heard:

Gloucester:  Now, good sir, what are you?

Edgar:  A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows

At ~3:56, a good chunk of Oswald's dialogue (lines 249-254) is audible:

Villain, take my purse;

If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body,

And give the letters which thou find'st about me

To Edmund Earl of Gloucester; seek him out

Upon the English party.  O, untimely death!

And at ~4:22, there's an-other exchange between Edgar and Gloucester (lines 256-259):

Edgar:  I know thee well.  A serviceable villain,

As duteous to the vices of thy mistress

As badness would desire.

Gloucester:  What, is he dead?

Edgar:  Sit you down, father; rest you.

I'm not sure I have the line numbers exactly right.  I've noticed that sometimes they vary between editions, anyway.

According to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, this audio was taken from a BBC radio broadcast and mixed live into the song on 29 September 1967 (p. 128).

"I Am the Walrus"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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For my Collection Audit project, I'm listening to a compilation album of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and I found something that might have influenced "I Am the Walrus."  In both "I Am the Walrus" and the Miracles' "Ooh Baby Baby," there's a similarly-delivered line that's just "I'm crying."  I'll admit that it's a pretty common lyric, but the delivery is quite similar, not only in how it's sung (with a sort of melisma on "crying"), but both have a bass note on the first syllable of "crying."

The Beatles had at least a passing familiarity with the Miracles, since they covered their "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" on With the Beatles (and also performed it live, as evidence by the Live on the BBC album and Anthology 1).