Other Groups' Walruses

Maybe you've heard The Guess Who's "Friends of Mine" at some time in your life. It was mildly popular at one time, at least where I lived. It was on the radio once in a while, fairly often, and it was kind of an event to listen to it. I remember really paying attention closely.

But it's a song that, to my knowledge, doesn't get played on the radio much anymore. And whenever I see a collection of Guess Who tracks, I look to see if it's there, and I never see it.

It was on the Wheatfield Soul album. And of course it was on the CD of Wheatfield Soul. I don't know if there was a shortened version put out as a single or not. It seems to me I used to hear a shortened version once in a while, but that could be my imagination, or a radio edit.

This is a song -- once an event, as I said -- that was a lot better at the time. Listening to it now, and this was true even a little over 20 years ago, it doesn't pack quite the same punch. The lyrics sound to me almost embarrassing. (I also loved the movie Billy Jack at the time, but last time I tried to watch it...my attempt was unsuccessful.) There are plenty of songs that have stood the test of time, or were sufficiently poetic to have transcended the bounds of their time. This one didn't quite make it.

Just to review the song, then I want to make another point about the Walrus ... and who the Walrus is ... and who cares.

This is a song that chugs along for just over 10 minutes. It starts off, "Friends of mine, don't have the time for food or wine, just money is on their mind." The lyrics are fairly cryptic. It's also a sing-along for those who've heard it a lot, except for the recitations. But the lyrics aren't the greatest throughout, such as, "Gotta do it to a duck on a two-ton truck." It has some nice treble guitar things going on.

Then there are the references to Magical Mystery Tour, with this lyric, "And Kurt is the walrus, (repeated), and the walrus does funny things to the veins in his left arm, all right." I want to get back to that line.

We go on to hear that Michael is a proud father, and that that means Michael's wife is a mother, stated in a very matter of fact way. The instruments are smoking. Then we come to a pause, a breakdown of sorts. This introduces the condemned man's walking the 13 steps to the gallows, and a recitation about death being near. We are marching up the steps and the soul of the condemned man is about to leave his body. This is cryptic. Then the man was dead. He went down, down, down, "to a place we laughingly refer to as hell." But none of us will go there because we're all "far too groovy." There's kind of a howling in here, and we're out in a wasteland somewhere. Until we ultimately question God, in a very overstated, overly dramatic way, "And where was God??" Echoed with weird effect.

That takes us back into the chugga chugga, an instrumental break. A time for us to drift away and consider it all. Then a moaning section, with a plaintive lyric about "Flanders Field," where the hippies go to smoke the poppies and feed their heads. "And they're all friends of mine." Then we get back into the main, original theme, "bu-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-baby!" It's all over and it's all right!

Toward the end we're all drifting about, doing our own noodling thing with the guitars and drums, a major breakdown, drifting vibes. But right at the end, the discipline returns and we get the organ, the essential tune we started with, bringing it to a nice conclusion, fading out.

OK, who is the Walrus, and who cares?

We know from The Beatles' song that, "I am the walrus," with John singing. And we know as well, from "Glass Onion," that, "The walrus was Paul." All quite significant, right? The Beatles actually have a walrus mask and other masks from your basic walrus collection. It is a thing of pop lore, the Walrus, yes!

But when we get to The Guess Who, and this line, "Kurt is the walrus," we're like "Kurt?" Sounds like an inside line, and because we don't really know anything about them or their friends, it's hard to care. Then we hear that the Walrus does funny things to the veins on his left arm, and for me, I have to pull back and ask for some respectful discretion. Funny things? Not funny, ha ha, I'm assuming. But funny as in strange, odd, self-destructive, while the rest of us are busy keeping our left arms looking good.

As far as I can discern, that's the end of Kurt's story. You've got the Magical Mystery Tour. That's clear enough, The Guess Who are propounding mysteries a la The Beatles. The announcement of Kurt's status as the Walrus means exactly what? Don't know. But what he's doing, some kind of drug thing, like the hippies later smoking poppies, is what we remember him for.

The conclusion to this fine blog post is this: The only Walrus we really care about is The Beatles'. Other groups -- if they have a Walrus -- need to either call it something else, or give us more of a reason to tune in and find out what their Walrus is up to. I'm respectful of The Guess Who on several levels, and mean no disrespect. But no one really cares about other groups' Walruses.

End of post, print it!