Beatles: Glass Onion Meaning

Song Released: 1968

Glass Onion Lyrics

I told you about Strawberry Fields
You know the place where nothing is real
Well here's another place you can go
Where everything flows
Looking through the bent-backed tulips
To See how the other half lives
Looking through a glass...

1. bobdylan

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   Feb 15th 2010 !⃝

   I think Winneberger (Or whatever his/her name is) really did a fine job with this song, tracking down all the references, the word play. To add my two penny perception, I think the glass onion simply refers to John's glasses. They were pretty funky looking.
   The song's a joyful reflection on the Beatles catalog. Get it, reflection--it's a metaphor. I just smoked a dove-tail joint, so I'm sort of like looking though a glass, darkly, myself. HaHa!
2. anonymous

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   Feb 15th 2010 !⃝

   the first guy was right. it is indeed just the beatles telling people not to read too much into their lyrics, its quite ironic that you lot have fallen for the exact same trap with this song
3. anonymous

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   Feb 8th 2010 !⃝

   My thoughts are that john needed "filler" on his album, so he thought why not make a song just reusing lines and ideas from older songs. And the walrus was paul lyric was john just giving something to paul to soften the blow of him soon deciding to leave.
4. anonymous

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   Nov 19th 2009 !⃝

   first verse: This is a place better then strawberry fields,even though strawberry fields is a paridice. second verse:the anciant celts death symbol is a walrus,when the made this song there was a myth that paul is dead(the walrus was paul.) third verse:no meaning,if paul is dead then they are honoring him by naming two of his songs.(fool on the hill & fixing a hole.)
5. Barclay

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   Oct 2nd 2009 !⃝

   I think that (possibly) this ill-tempered rant has got something in common with "How do you sleep". Lennon drops a few references to lyrics allegedly written by Paul McCartney - we hear that he, Lennon, told us about the Fool on the Hill, he mentions Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet, he also refers to fixing a hole. The phrase "the Walrus was Paul" in my mind reflects the notion that to a point Paul McCartney, like the Walrus, is his creation and reflects his desire to be both for and against the Establishment. The reason it is called Glass Onion is because although there are apparently layers of meaning it is all in fact clear - they weren't called "Lennon/McCartney" (i.e. Lennon first, McCartney second) for nothing!

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
6. Winnipegger

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   Sep 14th 2009 !⃝

   This is just John being John. A lot of the song has to do with taking digs at people who tried, in all seriousness, to interpret his lyrics.
   
   "I told you about Strawberry Fields,
   You know the place where nothing is real
   Well here's another place you can go
   Where everything flows."
   
   This is merely an allusion to his earlier song Strawberry Fields Forever, and promises the interpreter information about "another place [he] can go", which is most likely just Lennonese for "Go to hell, all you people who think that analyzing my lyrics gives you some insight into my head."
   
   "Looking through the bent-backed tulips
   To see how the other half lives
   Looking through a glass onion."
   
   Again, this is addressed to those same people. There is no such thing as a bent-backed tulip, per se. However, if one is looking through them or spying on someone, they would normally brush them aside with both hands to get a clearer view. The "other half" is Lennon himself, or anyone else who is the subject of scrutiny. If there actually was such a thing as a glass onion, it is likely that looking through it would distort reality and only give a partial picture of the subject, just as only analyzing his lyrics would. The picture would be incomplete, and not indicative of a total reality.
   
   However, the Beatles are not just John Lennon, and John Lennon is not the Beatles -- he is just one part of it, and for this reason he introduces various things that refer to Paul:
   
   "I told you about the walrus and me-man
   You know that we're as close as can be-man.
   Well here's another clue for you all,
   The walrus was Paul."
   
   John wasn't the walrus as he stated in "I Am the Walrus", it was Paul that was the walrus, but this could have been mentioned just to fool people.
   
   "Standing on the cast iron shore-yeah,
   Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet-yeah.
   Looking through a glass onion.
   Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
   Looking through a glass onion."
   
   The "cast iron shore" is actually a local name for the Liverpool docks, but is likely incuded here because it sounded like an interesting scene if taken literally. Again, though, "Lady Madonna" refers back to Paul, who wrote the song of the same name.
   
   In the same way, Paul is brought up again in the following passage, because he again wrote the song referred to:
   "I told you about the fool on the hill,
   I tell you man he living there still.
   Well here's another place you can be,
   Listen to me."
   
   And again in the final lines, Paul is brought up, being the writer of "Fixing a Hole":
   "Fixing a hole in the ocean
   Trying to make a dove-tail joint-yeah
   Looking through a glass onion."
   
   "Dove-tail joint" is just another manufactured word combination, comparable to "bent-backed tulips" and "cast-iron shore". While there is such a thing in woodwork as a dovetail joint, the suggestion instead is that what is meant is a specific type of marijuana cigarette, but there is no such thing. It just sounds good within the context of the verse.
7. anonymous

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   Jul 28th 2009 !⃝

   To Steev, when John says the walrus was Paul, it is a hint for the PID myth, because in India the walrus is a sign of death.
8. anonymous

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   Oct 29th 2008 !⃝

   People made bongs out of anything made of glass, glass ornaments like balls and onions were common just heat with a torch and poke a hole in the side and the top install a bowl and a straw and you got a bong.
   
   Beatles were hippies they took lots of drugs. Hippies loved words with double meaning, I'm sure he wrote the song when he was smoking dope anyways, its a term druggies use sometimes, if you don't like it stop calling your lawn grass because the same smelly hippies call weed that too sometimes.. Besides someone killed that asshat Lennon anyways, I hear he was a asshole Yoko Ono was the ony one with real talent fuck the Beatles.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
9. anonymous

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   Oct 20th 2008 !⃝

   A glass onion is a crystal ball. When you "look through a glass onion", you foretell the future; try to find hidden meaning; try to clarify; try to experience or explain the a different dimension of space and time.
10. anonymous

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    Oct 4th 2008 !⃝

    This song was written after the Beatles got word that people in the states were having parties listening to their records and trying to figure out the meaning. So the two of them simply wrote gibberish and waited to hear what people thought.
    
    After reading these comments, I'll bet John is still having a good laugh.
11. drencrom68

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    Sep 27th 2008 !⃝

    Glass onions were large hand blown glass bottles used aboard sailing ships to hold wine or brandy.
    
    John just like the sound of it.
    
    Again, listen to the Lennon Tapes or read the playboy interview.
    
    Sheeszh!
12. anonymous

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    Aug 11th 2008 !⃝

    Well ok, I got really high and listened to this song. I believe whole heartedly that the glass onion is a bong. The bubbler I was smoking out of had the shape of an onion, and while I was getting higher and higher, I felt that the song was part of my world, particularly part of what I was doing at the time.
13. anonymous

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    May 26th 2008 !⃝

    Alright this is what I got- Like someone mentioned earlier; John compiled this song from their other songs (Strawberry Fields, I Am The Walrus, The Fool On The Hill, Fixing A Hole)- The part about him and the walrus was in two parts; one part to confuse the crap out of people (because John was the walrus in the video) and the second to kill the rumors about him and Paul hating each other (as the Beatles started to have a strain in their professional relationship at that time.) "I told you about the walrus and me-man/ you know that we're as close as could be-man" - he just solidified the stance of him and Paul having a healthy friendship.
14. anonymous

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    May 12th 2008 !⃝

    "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. "
    
    Meaning he and Paul were so close that they were as one.
15. KittenStuffy

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    May 9th 2008 !⃝

    I think you're on to something, but does anybody have a CLUE why John called Paul the walrus?

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