lennono October 15th, 2005 09:41PM  
Just randomly came across the lyrics (which I never really understood) and had a gut feeling it was a John message to the other Beatles. Come Together was written at the time they were doing anything but Coming Together (Abbey Road). Come Together Right Now, OVER ME is him speaking through his lyrics to the others that he is the leader not Paul, and it is he they should fall in line with.

Look at each stanza:

1.Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly
He got joo-joo eyeball he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please (George)

2. He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me (Ringo)

3. He bag production he got walrus gumboot
He got ono sideboard he one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease
Come together right now over me (John)

4. He roller-coaster he got early warning
He got muddy water he one mojo filter
He say one and one and one is three
Got to be good-looking ’cause he’s so hard to see
Come together right now over me (Paul)

Only the Ringo one feels like a bit of a stretch, though 'monkey finger' would be a good nickname for a drummer who wears rings.

What do you think?

lennono October 15th, 2005 09:47PM  
Oh yeah- I forgot to cite the fact that Ringo had a notorious cocaine (and alcohol) habit dating to/before the period of Abbey Road.

stan January 26th, 2006 11:44PM  
John is using stream of conscience writing.He became connected with the universal conscienceness. Jungian theory. Each lyric is a clue that is predicting the future of a musician who will help bring the world closer together through his music. People will know that the song "come together" was written about him and actually fortold his prescence on the music scene. Dream interpretation techniques help disclose the clues. This guy will be older. (coming up slowly) He will have the support of women like John did Yoko. (ono sideboard) He will be into Jesus. (holy roller). Flattop only wears tennis shoes. (He wears no shoeshine). (Early warning refers to alcohol drug problem.HE learned he was an alcoholic at a very young age.
He is a comedian.(got to be joker).(Got to be good looking he's just so hard to see)Means he takes no credit for his accomplishments.very humble.He understates himself so much you don't know he's there. A very highly spiritual person.
( MOjo filter)is a dream symbal which means he's a cofee drinker.Jo is coffee.Filter is cofee filter.Toe jam football means exactly what it says he jammed his toe kicking footballs.When this person arrives on the scene it will be obvious the song is about him.No hair below his knees refers to a skin graft above his knee from a an accident where he almost lost his leg.(got feet below his knee. Hold you in his armchair till you feel his disease means) Means he wants to comfort people so badly its causes an uneasiness around him.This guy is all about love.(walrus gumboot)means ,He is the walrus.He goes around in secret before his time.He knows who he is but nobody else does.look up gumboot in the dictionary.( muddy water)means he'a been in a lot a trouble and had a lot of problems in his life and has overcome it all.( He says I know you AND YOU KNOW ME refers to all people are alike in that we experience the same problems and must realize that we all are going through the same things. We're not really that different.We have a lot in common.(Monkey finger) is a dream symbol that refers to his harmonica.A harmonica is a mono key instrument the size of a finger.monokey finger.
This guy is the walrus.

stublues February 17th, 2006 03:58PM  
Actually it was just an exercise in word play. If you read his books you'll run into this quite a bit. He said that the lyrics were "daft." He jotted down the first words that came to mind...

eraser999 July 11th, 2006 02:48PM  
In a book I own, called "A Hard Day's Write", all of the "back-stories" of Beatles songs are explained in great detail, with some of the people and events that inspired them.

This song was originally written as a campaign song for none other than LSD-enthusiast Timothy Leary. John wrote it for him, with the original lyrics being something close to "Come together, join the party". Leary was arrested for possession of marijuana and sent to prison, so John wrote the current lyrics (admittedly nonsensical and a complete excercise in wordplay). When Leary got out of jail, he asked John why he sold the song promised for his campaign. John replied, "I'm a tailor. You didn't want the song, so I changed it and sold it to someone else"

bbchips January 24th, 2008 06:10PM  
This is John Lennon's ode to his rock hero Chuck Berry and his song You Can't Catch Me. When Lennon started singing it in the studio, Paul said it sounds too much like Chuck Berry's and suggested to slow the tempo, which he did.

anonymous March 10th, 2008 01:29PM  
There's one major flaw in this interpretation: it's "Hold you in his arms, yeah, you can feel his disease", not "armchair"! If you listen to John performing this live, he actually just sings "arms"...

No doubt you used the lyric bag from 1966-70, in which case that's even funnier - just look at "Strawberry Fields Forever"...

anonymous May 22nd, 2009 12:05AM  
I have no idea as to what the song is about but I can tell what they probably meant by certain lyrics. When they sing one and one and one is three could be a clue to the paul is dead hoax. When they sing hold you in his armchair you could feel his disease could mean having sex to the point of climax. He shoot coca cola could be slang for cocaine. Another paul is dead hoax clue could be when they sing got to be good looking cause he's so hard to see.

anonymous May 26th, 2009 05:53AM  
And the refrain 'Shoot' was originally 'Shoot Me', but the 'Me' was dropped and overlaid with percussion.

'Come Together' -- or rather 'Come Together, Join The Party' -- was written as a slogan song for Timothy Leary's campaign to become Governor of California (perhaps as an alternative to the Far Right leanings of Reagan, but who knows?), per Leary's request to Lennon. Lennon agreed to write the song. The words 'Come Together' were Leary's idea and his campaign slogan.

Leary had wild ideals and a pro-drug stance, which would be part of his policies in his ludicrous campaign -- one which was simply idiotic (in any time, not just during the hippy-dippy, let's-not-deal-with-reality but do drugs instead to escape it, late 1960s), and would never have won favour over anybody but drug-addled hippies and biker gangs -- most, if not all, whom did not vote anyway. Of course Leary's campaign went nowhere. 'The Man, baby. Don't support The Man.' 'But it's Timothy Leary!' 'So what? He's trying to be The Man! Anyone trying to be The Man can't be trusted!' 'But he's on our side.' 'Not when he's The Man he won't be, Daddy. Dig?' (Okay, that part I invented. But I could easily see it being said.)

Plain and simple. The 'Come Together' lyrics by Lennon are just gobbledygook. Not for the Timothy Leary (campaign song)version but for The Beatles version. As with any drug-addict the perception of life (and one's mind) becomes gobbledygook. But Lennon had the gift of imagination; and lyrics; and humour; and forethought; and wit. (Did I mention I'm a John Lennon fan?) Think how many Lennon/McCartney lyrics have often been misinterpretted -- e.g., Helter Skelter by Charles Manson. But Lennon knew such a song with such lyrics -- as pertains to Leary's campaign song -- weren't going to assist Leary in his campaign. Lennon tried, though, and wrote the song anyway.

After Leary decided against using the song (whatever it was -- lyrically or otherwise), it was later written and slowed down (tempo-wise) and recorded entirely in the studio. But the song and lyrics we all know was not the song Lennon wrote for Timothy Leary, but for The Beatles -- based on Leary and Leary's campaign slogan idea. If it has meaning, which it probably has little, it is based on rhyme-scheme and made up words and phrases. There, of course, may be underlying digs towards Leary and the Drug Culture at the time, but purely in an lyrically ambiguous way -- much like the writing of Steely Dan. No hard feelings. I think Lennon and McCartney and the rest were simply salvaging a song idea that evolved into something else entirely.

-Terence Gunn.