who is who?

If you look carefully, the "chicken (?)" has Lennon's glasses and seems to look like his mouth.

The sleeve says

"I am the Walrus
("no your not" said Little Nicola)
John Lennon-Paul McCartney"

Very good points, I can see the Beatles doing just that to screw the rest of us up. It is great fun to confuse people...

Have you read "Billy Shears: The Secret History of the Beatles"? If you're interested in the "Paul is Dead" conspiracy, you should...

peace,
Me

"I Am the Walrus" is a 1967 song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney.[1] Lennon claimed he wrote the first two lines on separate acid trips.[2] The song was in the Beatles' 1967 television film and album Magical Mystery Tour, and was the B-side to the #1 hit "Hello, Goodbye".

Lennon composed the avant-garde song by combining three songs he had been working on. When he learned that a teacher at his old primary school was having his students analyze Beatles' lyrics, he added a verse of nonsense words.[3] Music critic Ian MacDonald argued that the song represented Lennon's creative high water mark with the Beatles.

The walrus is a reference to the walrus in Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" (from the book Through the Looking-Glass). Lennon expressed dismay that the walrus was the villain in the poem.

The genesis of the lyrics is found in three song ideas that Lennon was working on, the first of which was inspired by hearing a police siren at his home in Weybridge; Lennon wrote the lines "Mis-ter cit-y police-man" to the rhythm of the siren. The second idea was a short rhyme about Lennon sitting in his garden, while the third was a nonsense lyric about sitting on a corn flake. Unable to finish the ideas as three different songs, he combined them into one.

Lennon received a letter from a pupil at Quarry Bank Grammar School, which he had attended. The writer mentioned that the English master was making his class analyse Beatles lyrics (Lennon wrote an answer, dated September 1, 1967, which was auctioned by Christie's of London in 1992). Lennon, amused that a teacher was putting so much effort into understanding Beatles lyrics, wrote the most confusing lyric he could. Lennon's friend and former fellow member of The Quarrymen, Peter Shotton, was visiting, and Lennon asked Shotton about a playground nursery rhyme they sang as children.

Shotton remembered:

"Yellow matter custard, green slop pie,
All mixed together with a dead dog's eye,
Slap it on a butty, ten foot thick,
Then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick".[4]
Lennon borrowed a couple of words, added the three unfinished ideas and the result was "I Am the Walrus". Beatles official biographer Hunter Davies was present while the song was being written and wrote an account in his 1968 book on the band. Lennon remarked to Shotton, "Let the *beep* work that one out."[5]

All the chords are major chords or seventh chords, and all the musical letters of the alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F and G) are used. The song ends with a chord progression built on ascending and descending lines in the bass and strings, repeated over and over as the song fades. Musicologist Alan W. Pollack analyses: "The chord progression of the outro itself is a harmonic Moebius strip with scales in bassline and top voice that move in contrary motion."[6] The bassline descends stepwise A, G, F, E, D, C, and B, while the strings' part rises A, B, C, D, E, F#, G: this sequence repeats as the song fades, with the strings rising higher on each iteration. Pollack also notes that the repeated cell is seven bars long, which means that a different chord begins each four-bar phrase.

The line "See how they fly like Lucy in the sky" refers to Lennon's psychedelic song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds from Sgt. Pepper.

Lennon explained much of the song to Playboy in 1980:[2]

"The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko. Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna. All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular. The reference to "Elementary penguin" is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, "Hare Krishna", or putting all your faith in any one idol. I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan, in those days."
"It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realised that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, *beep* I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, 'I am the carpenter.' But that wouldn't have been the same, would it? [Singing] 'I am the carpenter....'"
Some have speculated that the opening line, "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together", is a parody of the opening line of "Marching to Pretoria", by the Weavers: "I'm with you and you're with me and we are all together." [7]

The song also contains the exclamation goo goo g'joob. Various hypotheses exist regarding the origin and meaning. One is that the phrase was derived from the similar "koo koo ka choo" in Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson, written in 1967. However, the film The Graduate, where "Mrs. Robinson" debuted, did not appear until December 1967, a month after "I Am the Walrus", and The Graduate Original Soundtrack (which contained only fragments of the final version of "Mrs Robinson") was not until January 1968.

James Joyce's Finnegans Wake contains the words googoo goosth at the top of page *557, where it appears:

...like milk-juggles as if it was the wrake of the hapspurus or old Kong Gander O'Toole of the Mountains or his googoo goosth she seein, sliving off over the sawdust lobby out of the backroom, wan ter, that was everywans in turruns, in his honeymoon trim, holding up his fingerhals...
It is not clear that Joyce is the source, or what it would mean if he were, but it has been a hypothesis put forward by fans of both artists.[8]

Another theory about the phrase's origin is that goo goo g'joob were the last words of Humpty Dumpty before he died [9]

The unusual monologue in the mix towards the end of the song is a few lines of Shakespeare's King Lear (Act IV, Scene VI), which were added to the song direct from an AM radio receiving the broadcast of the play on the BBC Home Service (or possibly the BBC Third Programme).[5] The bulk of the audible dialogue, heard in the fade, is the death scene of the character Oswald (including the words, "O untimely Death! Death!"); this is just one additional piece of the Paul is Dead urban legend.

The basic backing track of "I Am the Walrus" featuring the Beatles was released in 1996 on Anthology 2. George Martin arranged and added orchestral accompaniment that included violins, cellos, horns, clarinet and a 16-piece choir. Paul McCartney said that Lennon gave instructions to Martin as to how he wished the orchestration to be scored, including singing most of the parts as a guide. A large group of professional studio vocalists named "The Mike Sammes Singers", took part in the recording as well, variously singing "Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha", "oompah,oompah, stick it up your jumper!", "got one, got one, everybody's got one" and making a series of shrill whooping noises.[10]

The original 1967 stereo mix of the record has an interesting twist: At almost exactly two minutes into the song, the mix changes from regular stereo to "fake stereo", with most of the bass on one channel, and most of the treble on the other. The mix appears to 'wander' sonically in the fadeout, from left to right. The reason for the change in mixes was that the radio broadcast was inserted during the mono mixdown. The U.S. mono single mix also includes an extra bar of music before the words "yellow matter custard" - an early, overdub-free mix of the song released on The Beatles Anthology 2 reveals John singing the lyrics "Yellow mat - " too early; this was edited out. The mono version opens with a four-beat chord while stereo mix features six beats on the initial chord.

In 2003, the first-ever stereo mix of the song (except for the intro) was included as part of the soundtrack for the DVD release of The Beatles Anthology.

In 2006, the first-ever stereo mix of the complete song (from beginning to end, including the formerly "fake stereo" second half) was issued on the Beatles' album Love.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_the_Walrus


"Make love not war"

I think the walrus was Paul, but John wore the costume for MMT, because it would be weird for someone singing "I am the Walrus" to be dressed as something other than the walrus.

Course, who ever said that it was just to mess with people is probably more likely true.

Living life in peace...