Why John Lennon Saw “Glass Onion” As a “Throwaway Song”

The Beatles are widely known as one of the most influential rock bands of all time, and that is partially thanks to John Lennon. Due to Lennon’s enigmatic lyrics, Beatles fans have been trying to crack the code of what each song’s poetry means for decades. Well, as it turns out, there may not have been much to crack in the first place.

It has been revealed that Lennon was amused by the fanbase’s obsession with the hidden meaning behind lyrics, so he added breadcrumbs throughout the classic song “Glass Onion,” which hails from the 1968 LP The White Album. During a vintage interview from The Beatles Anthology, Lennon shared that none of his lyrics actually carry hidden meanings, and he decided to play with his listeners when the Beatles released “Glass Onion.”

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Lennon revealed that he included a line about Paul McCartney in “Glass Onion” in order to further mystify fans, even though the line didn’t mean much to the masterful musician. “I threw the line in – the Walrus was Paul – just to confuse everybody a bit more,” Lennon said. “It could have been the fox terrier is Paul. I mean, it’s just a bit of poetry. I was having a laugh because there’d been so much gobbledygook about Pepper—play it backward and you stand on your head and all that.”

During the last interview before his tragic death in 1980, Lennon explained that he never really thought of “Glass Onion” in a positive light. According to David Sheff, Lennon said, “That’s me, just doing a throwaway song, à la ‘Walrus’, à la everything I’ve ever written. … I thought ‘Walrus’ has now become me, meaning ‘I am the one.’ Only it didn’t mean that in this song.”

Lennon also discussed how referencing McCartney was also a “crumb” for the singer himself. “Well, that was a joke,” Lennon added. “The line was put in partly because I was feeling guilty because I was with Yoko and I was leaving Paul. I was trying – I don’t know. It’s a very perverse way of saying to Paul, ‘Here, have this crumb, this illusion – this stroke, because I’m leaving’.”

(Photo by Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)