Post by LUCY on Sept 26, 2003 1:30:04 GMT
www.kirkco.org/walrus/onion.htm
a must!!!!!!!!!!
Through A Looking Glass Onion
"Oh, what fun it'll be,
when they see me through the glass in here,
and can't get at me!"
- Alice Through the Looking Glass,
Lewis Carroll
The biggest mistake Paul Is Dead enthusiasts make is underestimating the John Lennon/Lewis Carroll connection. By doing so, they ignore the plain truth that John Lennon was the driving force behind the Paul Is Dead myth. Lennon had cited Carroll as one of his biggest influences (the deceased author is one of the cardboard figures on the "Sgt. Pepper" cover) and almost every Paul Is Dead clue is found to be influenced by the work of Lewis Carroll. These clues include decapitations, mirror-tricks, backward messages, literary allusions and symbolic animal imagery. Most people associate Lewis Carroll with Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, however, Lennon's primary source for inspiration was the follow-up, Through The Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There.
A song like I Am The Walrus alludes to Carroll's "Through The Looking Glass" poems The Walrus And The Carpenter and Jabberwocky.
In "Looking Glass", the Jabberwocky is a backwards poem that can only be deciphered after Alice holds it up to a mirror. After Alice does so, she is sure of only one thing: something had died.
"Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas-only I don't know exactly what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear at any rate-"
(Carroll, Annotated Alice, p.191)
In the poem, the "Jabberwocky" is actually a monstrous beast that is beheaded through heroics and a "vorpal sword". And there are various head wound and decapitation references in the lyrics pertaining to Paul Is Dead.
When one juxtaposes Lennon's noted affinity for Carroll with the Carrollian nature of the Paul Is Dead clues it's not hard to see that John Winston Lennon was constructing his own Jabberwocky with the Paul Is Dead concept.
The Sgt. Pepper track, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is directly inspired by the 'Wool and Water' chapter of Through The Looking Glass in which Alice and a sheep magically find themselves floating downstream in a small rowboat. "Picture yourself in a boat on a river" is reflexive of "[Alice] found they were in a little boat gliding between banks." When asked about the origins of "Lucy" in a 1997 biography, McCartney had the following to say:
"John had the title and he had the first verse. It started off very Alice in Wonderland. 'Picture yourself in a boat on the river…' It's very Alice. Both of us had read the Alice books and always referred to them, we were always talking about 'Jabberwocky' and we knew those more than any other books really. And when psychedelics came in, the heady quality of them was perfect…it was an Alice thing, which both of us loved."
Keep in mind that the Lennon/McCartney interest in all things "Jabberwocky" was during the period when all the credible Paul Is Clues began appearing. However, if the mystery is not properly defined, the clues mean nothing. A chronological structure of Paul Is Dead clues is essential to understand
a must!!!!!!!!!!
Through A Looking Glass Onion
"Oh, what fun it'll be,
when they see me through the glass in here,
and can't get at me!"
- Alice Through the Looking Glass,
Lewis Carroll
The biggest mistake Paul Is Dead enthusiasts make is underestimating the John Lennon/Lewis Carroll connection. By doing so, they ignore the plain truth that John Lennon was the driving force behind the Paul Is Dead myth. Lennon had cited Carroll as one of his biggest influences (the deceased author is one of the cardboard figures on the "Sgt. Pepper" cover) and almost every Paul Is Dead clue is found to be influenced by the work of Lewis Carroll. These clues include decapitations, mirror-tricks, backward messages, literary allusions and symbolic animal imagery. Most people associate Lewis Carroll with Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, however, Lennon's primary source for inspiration was the follow-up, Through The Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There.
A song like I Am The Walrus alludes to Carroll's "Through The Looking Glass" poems The Walrus And The Carpenter and Jabberwocky.
In "Looking Glass", the Jabberwocky is a backwards poem that can only be deciphered after Alice holds it up to a mirror. After Alice does so, she is sure of only one thing: something had died.
"Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas-only I don't know exactly what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear at any rate-"
(Carroll, Annotated Alice, p.191)
In the poem, the "Jabberwocky" is actually a monstrous beast that is beheaded through heroics and a "vorpal sword". And there are various head wound and decapitation references in the lyrics pertaining to Paul Is Dead.
When one juxtaposes Lennon's noted affinity for Carroll with the Carrollian nature of the Paul Is Dead clues it's not hard to see that John Winston Lennon was constructing his own Jabberwocky with the Paul Is Dead concept.
The Sgt. Pepper track, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is directly inspired by the 'Wool and Water' chapter of Through The Looking Glass in which Alice and a sheep magically find themselves floating downstream in a small rowboat. "Picture yourself in a boat on a river" is reflexive of "[Alice] found they were in a little boat gliding between banks." When asked about the origins of "Lucy" in a 1997 biography, McCartney had the following to say:
"John had the title and he had the first verse. It started off very Alice in Wonderland. 'Picture yourself in a boat on the river…' It's very Alice. Both of us had read the Alice books and always referred to them, we were always talking about 'Jabberwocky' and we knew those more than any other books really. And when psychedelics came in, the heady quality of them was perfect…it was an Alice thing, which both of us loved."
Keep in mind that the Lennon/McCartney interest in all things "Jabberwocky" was during the period when all the credible Paul Is Clues began appearing. However, if the mystery is not properly defined, the clues mean nothing. A chronological structure of Paul Is Dead clues is essential to understand
