Song Meanings by Band:

            Forums

     Requests

           Links

    Random Song

  Submit an
      Interpretation

Beatles - Come Together Song Meanings

1 2 3 4 Next >

Ok, I can't take credit for this one, my dad told me. He says that they wrote it because everyone thought that there were hidden meanings in their songs, so they wrote one that would seem obvious that it had a hidden meaning. The truth is...IT DOESN'T!!! THE SONG IS COMPLETELY RANDOM!!! Oh well...it's still an awesome song.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2005-07-31 18:17:55     Rating:

Okay, I'e read this several times, and also heard it while watching a documentary on John Lennon. This song DOES have a meaning. Timothy Leary came to John Lennon and asked him to write a song for him. He was going to run for a political office, and his campaign slogan was going to be "Come Together." He wanted a song his followers could sing along the campaign trail that included that slogan. Timothy Leary was arrested before the campaign, so John Lennon no longer felt obligated to give Leary the song he wrote, and therefore, the Beatles recorded it as their own. So that explains "Come together right now, over me." As for the wacky lyrics of the verses, never question John Lennon.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2005-10-19 22:53:24     Rating:

Yup, that second one is exactly it.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2005-12-17 01:52:56     Rating:

This is just me... but listening to the lyrics, I wonder if John is not describing the Beatles in the song... 4 verses, 4 beatles... The 3rd verse (walrus gumboot) describes John (ono sideboards, walrus gumboot, feel his disease), the first vers (here come ol flattop) describes George (joo-joo eyeball, holy roller, He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please), the 4th verse perhaps about Ringo (early warning, one and one and one is three could deal with drums and rythm, and Got to bee good looking cause he's so hard to see is because Ringo was always behind the drumset.), and the 2nd verse about Paul (monkey finger, like a bass player,) But I don't know. I'm just playin around.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2005-12-21 19:00:02     Rating:

Yes, that interpertation about Timothy Leary is exactly correct, but there is also another rumor about the meaning of this song. As some might know, Paul McCartney was rumored to be killed in a car crash. Some believers of this rumor also believe that this song had to do with Paul's death. The lyric "come together right now over me" refers to "comming together" over Paul's grave. Also, the lyric "one and one and one is three" refers to there being only three Beatles after Paul's death. I'm not sure if this rumor is correct, just thought I'd share.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2005-12-25 03:10:21     Rating:

Interpretation done by Grant Kimura:

No one's willing to explain the lyrics to "Come Together" by the Beatles. They all say it's just random gibberish. I say that each of the individual verses is about each respective member of the band:

The third verse is obviously about John Lennon. Having an "ono sideboard" would mean he has Yoko as a sideboard (armrest on a couch), which would mean that she is his support. (She was in the studio in a hospital bed with him, since they had both been in a car crash 3 weeks prior, as they recorded this song) Walrus gumboot would most likely refer to the Beatles song, "I am the Walrus", which was penned by Lennon.

The first verse seems like it would be about Paul. The original version of "Come Together" was faster, until Paul wrote that groovy bassline and slowed it down. This was also about the time Paul and John started getting more and more bitter at each other, so the last line would then make sense. As for the hair line, who knows? John actually had the longest hair in the group during this time.

The last verse, I'm assuming is about Harrison. George was the least prominent member of the group. Only sang backup, never lead, always stood off to the side, so the "so hard to see" line would make sense in those regards. "Mojo filter" could also be in reference to Harrison's really strong sense of spirituality with Middle Eastern influences.

Thus, the second verse would be about Ringo. That just seems like gibberish to me, but it's the only verse left for the poor guy.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-01-03 14:34:04     Rating:

I have always interpreted this to be about Yoko's pregnancy. The song I believe is about the foetus. A pregnancy which she unfortunately miscarried.

A few lines to support this:

- He got Ono side board
-He got feet down below his knee (emphasis on down a directional reference to Yoko's feet)
- one and one and one is three (john, yoko, child)
- Got to be good looking 'cause he so hard to see
- He got hair down to his knee (directional reference... yoko's hair)
- Got to be a joker he just do what he please
- He say, I know you You know me One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
- He shoot Coca Cola
- He got toe jam football (sexual reference)
- Come together Right now over me

Of course no one else I've met agrees with this riddle like interpretation

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-01-04 17:33:48     Rating:

I've always thought that this song was about a feneral and then things that happen to the body while decaying underground.

-"Here come old flat top he come groovin' up slowly" Refers to the coffin being carried to the funeral.
-"He got joo-joo eyeball he one holy roller" Could possibly refer to Paul; joo-joo eyeball meaning he is seen as good looking, hol;y roller could be referring to money. I.e. Paul is rich.
-"He got hair down to his knee" It was, and still is, a common misconception that hair and nails continue to grow after death. This is, in fact, not true, but the Beatles undoubtedly would have believed it. No thanks to Hollywood.
-"Got to be a joker he just do what he please" Perhaps he ignored some sign of warning and got himself killed.

-"He wear no shoeshine he got toe jam football" As 'conspiracy theorists' will know, not wearing shose was an omen of death, because in the Middle Ages shoes were too valuable to be buried, so people were buried with no shoes on, and the shoes were sold or used by the family. Toe jam football is probably also referring to nails growing after death, and the fact that during the decaying process, as the toenails rot they swell.
-"He got monkey finger he shoot Coca Cola" Monkey finger refers to an odd phenomenon during decay where the skin tightens just after rigor mortis, and the fingers appear elongated. The coca cola was probably a reference to shooting cocaine, but if the Beatles had said cocaine the song would have been banned from radios.
-"He say, I know you, you know me. One thing I can tell you is you got to be free" I'm not quite sure about this one, but I think it may mean that the dead man knew the funeral-goers well and that they should all know that he would be free in heaven, or perhaps that he freel ymade his choice to ignore a warning just to keep things interesting, and so died.
-"Come together, right now over me" In my opinion the most obvious part, as far as my theory goes. People are congregating over the body at a wake. Congregating OVER the body in the coffin.

-"Spinal cracker..." maybe he broke his back and died.
-"Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease" Or maybe he had some affliction, AIDS, the Plague(...?), or maybe even cocaine addiction.

-"...roller coaster he got eatly warning" Maybe his disease was LSD and hew jumped off of a roller coaster... Something tells me this is too literal and ouright to be correct though.
-"one and one and one is three" I agree that this may have been because there were only 3 Beatles left.
-"Got to be good looking cause he's so hard to see..." Closed casket funeral.


Note- Another possibility that I find extremely likely is that the Beatles wrote this song the way they did just to fuel the conspiracy theories. They would never have admitted it, but the theories made them money. People went and bought records just to hear if the things they had heard were true. Also, I do not believe Paul was ever addicted to any hallucinogens or drugs at all, considering that as of 2006 he is still alive and kickin'.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-01-16 18:42:59     Rating:

While I do not believe this song is entirely about drugs, there are some pretty obvious references.

"He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola." Monkey finger could mean the elongated pinky fingernail crack addicts use to snort, and "shoot coca-cola" is pretty self-explanatory...shooting up cocaine...

"spinal cracker" ? crack again maybe?

"you can feel his disease" could be addiction

"roller-coaster" some sort of acid trip

"muddy water he one mojo filter" bong filter?

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-02-14 11:59:15     Rating:

You're all reading too deep into this...lol. Quite funny really how you can get so much meaning out of something Lennon himself said was meant to be a bunch of intentional non-sense just like "Walrus".

Submitted by: stan
Added: 2006-02-23 16:32:54     Rating:

I think the song is about a person who will bring the world together through music. I think it is about the walrus. The song is made up of clues about who he is. He will appear in the future.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-03-13 22:03:20     Rating:

I think you all are partially right about the 4 verses 4 beatles, Ringo, John, Paul, and George. The rumor about Paul dying the pregance. But I think the best one is the 4 verses 4 beatles Ringo so hard to see,that one. You guys are freakin awesome!!!

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-03-20 17:48:57     Rating:

I believe the song is about the four Beatles. The first verse is probably about Ringo, "Got to be a joker" being the most identifiable portion. The second verse is probably about Paul: "He wear no shoeshine" could refer to his bare feet in the photo on the cover of "Abbey Road", which may have already be taken; and Paul's known role as the "keen" one in the band could be reflected in "I know you, you know me," etc. The third verse is definitely about John. The fourth verse is likely about George, due to "so hard to see" and references to guitarists such as Muddy Waters. It's interesting how prescient the song is, though: Paul, many years later, wrote a song called "Freedom", and George was a participant in the John-less Beatles known as the "Threetles", who came together over John for The Beatles Anthology.

Submitted by: lonelysociety
Added: 2006-06-09 03:13:12     Rating:

I guess this song describes a kind of weird guy who has been made the way he is by the expectations that society has of him. I lovve this song for its groovy guitar accords after lennon has sung all the lyrics. even though personally I like McCartney the most of all the band members I simply adore Lennon for this song.

The stanzas seem to contain no meaning but they leave a distinct impression on the listener of a poor, apparently cool guy who's struggling to keep up with what he needs to do to stay cool in the eyes of the others. All the interpretations about the song describing the band members seem plausible enough, but that's not what I associate this song with and I guess the band member stuff is not that imaginative, either.

Submitted by: ringo
Added: 2006-06-14 23:34:26     Rating:

The song has 0 meaning.....just jibberish John made up.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-07-08 15:43:40     Rating:

The song is about the Vietnam War…ie..The North Vietnamese troops

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-07-12 04:56:48     Rating:

This song is about the effects and process of shooting heroine. "Come together over me...shoot-shoot-shoot"-sour salts water and heroin over the flame. He embodies the flame. The burning desire of the addiction.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-07-26 19:46:22     Rating:

No, no, no, this song is the height of the "paul is dead" craze! Think about it, "he got hair down to his knee" about the belief that your hair continues to grow when you're dead, "one, and one, and one, make three" the three remaining beatles, "come together, right now, over me" about how they would be standing, literally, over Paul during the funeral, "he wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football" both things about being dead and buried.

Well, thers just some things off the top of my head, tell me what you think. I'm pretty sure I have this one in the bag.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-10-30 21:26:03     Rating:

First off, whoever said I am the Walrus is a bunch of gibberish, it's not. Yea, a few lines are because John wrote them to confuse a teacher trying to analyze his lines in england but the rest has a meaning but that is a different song. I think that guy at the beginning about the four verses being about the four Beatles. 1 would be George. 2 would be Paul. 3 would be John (obviously) and 4 would be Ringo.

Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2006-11-04 12:12:38     Rating:

When I first heard the song as an Aerosmith cover it seemed really obvious to me that it was about a threesome, and even when I found out it was a cover of the Beatles (I'm only young) I don't see any reason to change my perspective.

1 2 3 4 Next >

Submit your interpretation!

Discuss this group in the Beatles forum

Email me when this band is updated

Back to Beatles Song Meanings

Home

Users Online
There are 16 guests and 0 registered users online.