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(Maybe Grant, with his interest in slang, could answer this one.)
Recently I heard a couple of teenagers talking. At one point, one responded to what the other said with "Koo-koo-a-choo," a phrase from the Beatles song, I AM THE WALRUS.
I had no clue from the conversation or tone of voice what he meant by that: "That's cool!"? or "Whatever..."? or something else?
Has anyone else heard this usage and can you tell me about it?
(BTW, I live in west-central Indiana, if that's helpful info.)
I wondered the same thing many years ago, and researched it online. First, and you can see this from the printed lyrics on the album, the phrase is "goo goo g'joob." The phrase "koo koo a choo" is from Simon & Garfunkel's tune Mrs. Robinson.
There seemed to be no real consensus about the meaning of those Beatles lyrics. I read everything from "it's the sound a walrus makes" to "that was just Lennon's way to say he was on acid." Another opinion was that it was just scat, and equivalent to "boop boop be do" … but I doubt that.
What it might mean to teens these days is anyone's guess. I'd have been curious enough to ask the kid. Too late now.
Heimhenge said:
I wondered the same thing many years ago, and researched it online. First, and you can see this from the printed lyrics on the album, the phrase is "goo goo g'joob." The phrase "koo koo a choo" is from Simon & Garfunkel's tune Mrs. Robinson.
There seemed to be no real consensus about the meaning of those Beatles lyrics. I read everything from "it's the sound a walrus makes" to "that was just Lennon's way to say he was on acid." Another opinion was that it was just scat, and equivalent to "boop boop be do" … but I doubt that.
What it might mean to teens these days is anyone's guess. I'd have been curious enough to ask the kid. Too late now.
I agree with Heimhenge entirely, only to add that it supports the premise more that Lennon added an extra "g'joob" where the rhythm fit. That would seem to support Heimhenge's interpretation, and the wonderful reference to "Mrs. Robinson" seems another example. Singers have often used random sounds or strings of sounds to fill places where a certain rhythm demanded it (I did this myself in my short stint as a session guitarist/backup singer — I'd make "Hey-hey" or "woo-woo" sounds as necessary). That said, we can't exactly ask Lennon, and I wouldn't ask Yoko Ono anything unless it were "how to make money from your dead lover's genius."
There are a number of things that might be worth keeping in mind when trying to figure out the sometimes erratic lyrics of "I Am The Walrus". Just off the top of my head:
The phrase "goo goo g'joob" ties in with the backing vocal "juba, juba" in the closing section of the song. That rhythmic chant is also overlaid on such phrases as "oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper" (a refrain from a pre-WWII novelty song by Jimmy Edwards) and "ev'rybody's got one, ev'rybody's got one".
Much of the symbolism in the song is supposed to derive from Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter", although John admitted later that he'd misunderstood the political satire in the original work and identified himself with the wrong character. "Goo goo g'joob" may relate to something in that poem or the book that surrounds it. (The "eggman" was confirmed long ago as referring to Humpty Dumpty.)
There are other lyrics in "Walrus" that are essentially meaningless, such as "See how they smile like pigs in a sty,
See how they snied." For all that the song has been picked to pieces for over forty years, I've never heard anybody make any serious attempt at explaining "snied".
Ron Draney said:
There are other lyrics in "Walrus" that are essentially meaningless, such as "See how they smile like pigs in a sty,
See how they snied." For all that the song has been picked to pieces for over forty years, I've never heard anybody make any serious attempt at explaining "snied".
Does this qualify as a "snied" remark?
Ron Draney said:
There are other lyrics in "Walrus" that are essentially meaningless, such as "See how they smile like pigs in a sty,
See how they snied." For all that the song has been picked to pieces for over forty years, I've never heard anybody make any serious attempt at explaining "snied".
It's difficult to explain most of the lyrics in the song, but I always assumed it was not "snied", but just a non-grammatical "snide" (as though there were a missing connecting verb between, e.g., "see how they're snide," but I could be way off). Also what is an "elementary penguin", and why were they "kicking Edgar Allan Poe" (though that is, for some reason, my favorite line in the song)?
Oh, and, by the way, rimshot for Glenn for his last comment.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
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