More "Glass Onion"

[fourthousandholes]

There's another thread here called "Glass Onion", but the lyrics of the song per se weren't the focus.
Let's look at the song again:

Glass Onion
Lennon/McCartney

I told you about Strawberry Fields; (situation #1)
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 (#2)
To see how the other half live
Looking through a glass onion.

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. (#3)

Standing on the cast iron shore – yeah. (#4)
Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet – yeah.
Looking through a glass onion.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Looking through a glass onion.

I told you about the fool on the hill. (#5)
I tell you man he’s living there still.

Well here’s another place you can be.
Listen to me!
Fixing a hole in the ocean (#6)
Trying to make a dove-tail joint – yeah
Looking through a glass onion.
------------

While fooling around on another thread, I had an idea about the song, which I'll discuss later,
but for now I've posted the lyrics for consideration.
There are 6 situations described here. What might be the significance of each one?
All insights welcome! ;D Feel free to post on what has already been sussed out in this song.
For example, "the cast iron shore" has been discussed here before:

www.sjsfiles.btinternet.co.uk/dig0407churchc.htm
"The 'cast iron shore', of Beatles fame, takes its name from the waterfront to
St Michael's Hamlet, a conservation area since 1968." *

We should try to see how the whole song ties together, if it does.
What would we see if we were to make the connections?

-------------

* Lotsa cool pictures of Liverpool here:
www.sjsfiles.btinternet.co.uk/start.htm
especially these:
www.sjsfiles.btinternet.co.uk/beatles.htm

[tkp1966]

"Where everything flows"
Could that be in the ocean, everthing flows there

Tulips can be grown in either of two ways: through offsets or seed. Being genetic clones of the parent plant, offsets are the only way to enlarge the stock of a given tulip cultivar. By contrast, tulips do not come true from seed; the mixing of genes between parent tulips is very unpredictable. A tulip grown from seed will usually bear only a passing resemblance to the flower from which the seeds were taken. This makes for great potential in breeding new tulip flowers, and great variation in the wild. However, tulip growers must be patient: offsets often take at least a year to grow to sufficient size to flower, and a tulip grown from seed will not flower for anywhere between five and seven years after planting. "Broken" tulips (tulips affected by the mosaic virus) will occasionally revert to plain "breeder" colouring, but usually maintain their colourful, infected state when grown from offsets.

[il ras]

Looking through a glass onion....

[tkp1966]

Drop the i and the last n in onion what is it now......Ono .

[fourthousandholes]

Sehr gut! "Glass Onion" is about Yoko! ;D

translation2.paralink.com/

That website not only translates words, it interprets songs too!
Well....maybe not. So we'll have to do it ourselves.
I never knew all that stuff about tulips, tkp66, and I really like the picture you posted, Ilras.
A "glass onion" is an underwater boat window, or a magnifying glass. Maybe other things as well.

[beatlies]

tkp1966 said:

"Where everything flows"
Could that be in the ocean, everthing flows there

Tulips can be grown in either of two ways: through offsets or seed. Being genetic clones of the parent plant, offsets are the only way to enlarge the stock of a given tulip cultivar. By contrast, tulips do not come true from seed; the mixing of genes between parent tulips is very unpredictable. A tulip grown from seed will usually bear only a passing resemblance to the flower from which the seeds were taken. This makes for great potential in breeding new tulip flowers, and great variation in the wild. However, tulip growers must be patient: offsets often take at least a year to grow to sufficient size to flower, and a tulip grown from seed will not flower for anywhere between five and seven years after planting. "Broken" tulips (tulips affected by the mosaic virus) will occasionally revert to plain "breeder" colouring, but usually maintain their colourful, infected state when grown from offsets.

Yoko Ono = "Ocean Child" in Japanese ; see another white album song, with seashore imagery, "Julia."

[fourthousandholes]

Ilras wrote:


If I'm not mistaken, this is a still from "Yellow Submarine" in which the "new Beatles", looking out
of the submarine windows, pass a submarine going in the opposite direction which has
the "old Beatles" looking out of the windows of that submarine. They wave to each
other. (I'll try to post the video later.) It's a cartoon version of this:

old Beatles:


new Beatles:


I'm a little off topic with this, but it's worthy of mention. (It ties in with the idea of physical human
beings being "reborn" as spiritual beings.)

That kind of brings us to the start of "Glass Onion":
"I told you about Strawberry Fields;
You know the place where nothing is real."

People tend to think of the phrase "nothing is real" as having come from poet John Keats'
statement that ""Nothing is real until it is experienced." That's true enough in terms of
personal experience, but on a grander scale there's a Hindu concept that we live in the world
of "Maya"; a world that is an illusion. It's real in a physical sense,
but like a stage production, it's not the true reality.
It only has the appearence of being what's real.
Funny to think, then, that by "coincidence", the Mayan calendar of Mexico, which is
carved on the "gate of the sun" ends in the year 2012, in the common
perception. In other words, the "world of illusion"; the play, ends in 2012, and significantly,
it "opens" the "gate of the sun" into a new era. But I digress.
Here's more on the concept of Maya:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_%28illusion%29

If you listen to the song "Strawberry Fields", there's a pronounced under water theme
to it, conveyed both in the music itself, and the lyrics.
For example, "You can't, you know, tune in, but it's all right" describes the fact
that you can't tune into radio stations under water, but "it's all right"
(the water temperature isn't too cold: "That is I think it’s not too bad").
So life (down) in Strawberry Fields isn't too bad, even though people living there are
"living with eyes closed", like people underwater would.
The Strawberry Fields in the song, then, isn't the orphanage in Liverpool, but a place where
the people who live (down) there live in a world of illusion, and they keep their eyes closed to
what's true, and they can't, you know, tune in to what's going on above where they are.

He told us about Strawberry Fields. (Situation #1)

[fourthousandholes]

"Looking through the bent-backed tulips (Situation #2)
To see how the other half live;
Looking through a glass onion."

These lyrics have taken on a peculiar significance since John was murdered.
The place in New York's Central Park called "Strawberry Fields" probably has some
bent-backed tulips around it, and if he's looking up, as if he were a dead person, buried there,
(and I know that he isn't, of course) he would be looking at how the other half ("the living")
live. But no, he's looking through the bent-backed tulips; hidden, like the person in
"Strawberry Fields", who was looking at an "under water" world through a window;
looking through a window on a world he's not a part of.
He's looking at the happenings on Earth, like a ghost might; a spirit hiding amidst the tulips.

Now here's where our friend Crowned Joe at TKIN gets it wrong.
You see, the idea being put across here is that the person who takes you down
from where he is, to where he's going to;
the person who is hiding amidst the bent-back tulips, is the spirit of a formerly living person,
who is now observing life on Earth the way a person in a submarine observes the sea life
under the water, through a window. We, like the undersea creatures, are being watched
by the spirit of a dead man. This is where Crowned joe misses the analogy,
and thinks that we are literally being watched through a glass ceiling, seventy miles
above the Earth.

The opinions I've expressed so far are my own, of course, but
I think you'll see the cohesion of what I have to say as we move through this.
Please feel free to express your own take on the song as we go through it.
There's a lot embedded in the lyrics, imo. Many layers to what's being said; like an onion!

[Mellow Yellow]

Well, my (failed) attempt to analyze LOVE did yield some stuff. If you listen, Glass Onion kicks in with the acoustic guitar off of Things We Said Today, then a "ohh" from Bill (from Hello Goodbye) and a "Oh yeah!" and then a "Hello hello!" followed by "Nothing is real" and then it goes to the verse. And if you notice, during the verse part of "fixing a hole in the ocean" you hear the horns from Penny Lane...... So maybe the Glass Onion is at Penny Lane.

Another translation of Yoko Ono from Japanese to English would be : Beside an Axe
or
Next to hatchet

[fourthousandholes]

tkp1966 wrote:
"Where everything flows"
Could that be in the ocean, everthing flows there "

Mellow Yellow wrote:
"So maybe the Glass Onion is at Penny Lane."

Or perhaps, at least, in the "cast iron shore" section of Liverpool, on the river Mersey,
which would include "Strawberry Fields"(I think). Perhaps Plastic Paul or Mr. Lightson would know.
There may be a grave there. Certainly Eleanor Rigby's grave is.
I sometimes think the line in that song, the line that says she "was buried along with
her name", may hint that her name was "appropriated" by someone else. A bit of "identity theft",
as it were. When the name was no longer "needed" it was "buried".
Just a thought. I don't have any evidence.

Also worth mentioning, Mellow Yellow, is that only the verse:
"Fixing a hole in the ocean
Trying to make a dove-tail joint – yeah
Looking through a glass onion."
is included in the "Love" album. Apparently it had a significance enough to include it.
We'll get to that shortly, of course.
-----
"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."(#3)

Of all the portions of "Glass Onion" I've delineated, this one has probably been the most discussed
and analyzed, of course. I hardly need to go into this at length.
If "the Walrus was Paul", then "the carpenter" is John.
And if "the walrus" is a symbol of death, then "the carpenter" is resurrection from death.
There are many other variations on the concept, but that, imo, is what's significant in this part
of the song. What's implicit is that if Paul died, he's not really "really" dead, but either
alive in another realm, or due to be resurrected to life come the day that the dead are raised
from their graves (referencing the the popular Christian concept), or both. Death and
resurrection from it being "as close as can be" - an appropriate discussion for Good Friday, isn't it?
A better outcome than being dead once and for all, I'd say.

As a bit of an aside, I just have to mention that there are two things about this day that always
sober me right up: the people who nail themselves to crosses, usually in the Philippines,
and the individuals who experience the ordeal of the crucifiction, complete with pain and stigmata,
on this date every year. I certainly don't envy either group, but I can't help but have
a certain respect for them. The self-crucifiers, though bizaare, certainly show devotion to the cause,
and the stigmatists apparently are so attuned to the actual event that although it occurred
many years ago, it resonates through time within them every year, not only on a physical level,
but on an emotional, mental, and psychic level as well. This is the experience, according
to those who've discussed their experiences in interviews. Yikes!
I've heard it said, "Well the stigmatists are experiencing a demonic deception, because
they go through the ordeal on the wrong day", but I think that those who say this don't get
that it is the focusing on the event that "tunes it in" as much as the cylcle of time repeating the
vibrations across the spectrum of parallel cycles every year.
(Don't worry if you don't understand what I just said.)
I get very emotional myself, when this day comes every year.
My best wishes to you all for the holidays, whichever you celebrate, or don't.

[fourthousandholes]

Note: I'm skipping (situation #4) for the moment, because, frankly, I'm not quite sure
where it fits in, though I have a general idea.

"I told you about the fool on the hill.(Situation #5)
I tell you man he’s living there still."

Now here's where it starts to get interesting. By all appearences, the "fool on the hill" is a corpse:

Day after day, alone on a hill,
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still[/color].

He never gives an answer.

Nobody ever hears him.

He never seems to notice.

He never shows his feelings.[/i][/color]

But:

The fool on the hill sees the sun going down.

He see(s) the world spinning round.

(He's) talking perfectly loud.

He never listens to them.

He knows that they’re the fools.[/i]

And:

"They don’t like him. They can tell what he wants to do."

So, relative to our previous discussion of death and resurrection from it, we can see that although
the fool is apparently a corpse, he's alive and observant on another level; even speaking.
His corpse is on a hill, but he's able to move around in his presumably spiritual existence.
But there's something else to take note of: "he’s living there still."

Traditionally "the gods" lived on the tops, or in the tops, of mountains. From Mount Olympus,
home of the Greek gods, to Mount Hood in the United States, harbouring Native American deities,
to the proverbial army of knights asleep inside Blaník, a mountain in the Czech Republic, to El Dorado,
the city of the Golden King in the Andes mountains - the mountains are just the place
where the "gods" have traditionally always hung out. Even in the Old Testament, Mount Araraat
was where God gave Moses the 10 commandments, and in the book of Ezekiel,
"the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain
which is on the east side of the city." That would be the Mount of Olives, about which it is
prophesied that: "his (God's) feet shall stand in that [future] day
upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east," etc.

So the gods have always been associated with the mountains, and vice versa. And the "glory of
the LORD" that Ezekiel spoke of was probably a 'UFO', but I just mean to make the point here
that "the fool on the hill" could be not only a dead person whose corpse is in a grave on a hill,
but if he's "living there still", he's like the "gods" who have traditionally lived on the mountain tops.

[TotalInformation]

FOTH: unfinished JPM song playing on the notion of the fool , the jester, as the only one who coupld speak the truth. (cf Shake-speare, Walrus, Her Majesty)

It becomes even more fitting perhaps after JPM's death and not-so-resurrection:



The Fool, Unknowing, beyond the known, between the heights and the depths on the edge of Life and Death. This card is the null-signifier, symbol of that which is beyond thought, designator of what cannot be designated within the universe of structuring signifiers/equations. The Fool, Aleph, is about to step off the cliff of the uncreated into manifestation. He will step into the World, the House of God, Beth-El, where we see the Fool contained in creation (in Bayt, the second letter of the alphabet but the first letter of Bereshit, Genesis).

Could a picture say it any more clearly? Beyond-knowing life/death.

showing someone "thoughtless" on the edge of discontinuous life-death, about to step in the world of creation and manifestation,

www.psyche.com/psyche/tarot/trumps/fool.html


Although it cannot be seen in all modern cards, The Fool is often walking off a cliff. This raises the question "Is The Fool making a mistake, or is The Fool making a leap of faith?"

[fourthousandholes]

Ah yes, THE FOOL:



Taking that leap of faith. ;D

Total Information wrote:
"FOTH: unfinished JPM song playing on the notion of the fool , the jester, as the only
one who could speak the truth. (cf Shake-speare, Walrus, Her Majesty)"

You're saying "Fool On the Hill" is an unfinished JPM song, etc.
No doubt that it encompasses that idea, but I think that in the context of "Glass Onion"
it has a significance as part of the sequence John is laying out as well.
I may have more to say about it when I connect the dots in "Glass Onion". However your
comment did make me think of these lines in the song "American Pie":

"...but that's not how it used to be, when the jester sang for the king and queen
in a coat he borrowed from James Dean and a voice that came from you and me,
oh and while the king was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown
the courtroom was adjourned, no verdict was returned..."[/i]
These lines seem to pertain to Bob Dylan, though the line about the courtroom being adjourned
without a verdict sounds a bit like the mysterious "Band on the Run" line about the county judge
who held a grudge searching forever more for the band on the run.

[JoJo]

The piece of paper in the violin case has partial lyrics to "Yesterday".

[TotalInformation]

Yeah I was thinking more abut American Pie. It's about several days the music died besides that plane crash. it's about JPM and Dylan both dying and being replaced...

the Helter Skelter murderbeing another day the music died...

[fourthousandholes]

;D Guess I had you tuned in, Total! I was working on my post, unaware of yours.

American Pie: (The video is quite eloquent.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHkT2YfqHE4
and then here's a version that explains it all:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZFiMo8TIc&NR=1

"Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?"[/color] - PID!
JoJo wrote:
"The piece of paper in the violin case has partial lyrics to "Yesterday"."



Man, you have good eyesight!
I had given consideration to "the jester" as JPM in American Pie, but I don't think Don McLean
would have made him two people.

"the courtroom was adjourned, no verdict was returned"

because the band was on the run?
from Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos?

I had thought of "the joker and the thief" in Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" as being Paul
and Bill, but now I'm having to contemplate the possibility of Dylan and either Bill or JPM.
Not sure I can make sense of that.

[JoJo]

Hah no I don't have eyesight that good, I found this info in a trivia thread in a Beatles forum. This was the best pic I could find.

Interesting group, this Marillion: Wikipedia

Two early Marillion albums contain Pink Floyd references in their cover artwork. The back cover of Script for a Jester's Tear depicts Pink Floyd's album A Saucerful of Secrets lying on the floor, along with other records. The inside cover of Fugazi shows a bedroom in disorder. There we find another set of influential albums scattered about: Pink Floyd's The Wall lies open, with Peter Hammill's Over and Fools Mate nearby.

[fourthousandholes]

Returning to the commentary on portions of "Glass Onion", we've reached: (situation #6):

"Well here’s another place you can be.
Listen to me!
Fixing a hole in the ocean
Trying to make a dove-tail joint – yeah
Looking through a glass onion."

Here's one that BeatlePaul at TKIN must have gotten from an "insider".
This is absolutely the right interpretation, in my opinion, and I'll explain why shortly:

(data from Post #74 here:
60if.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=60ifclues&action=display&thread=1064668996&page=3 )

Here is a map of Spain and Morocco, with the land masses "trying to make a dove-tail joint",
as if "fixing a hole** in the ocean" that leads into the Mediterranean Sea:



An actual shot of the "hole":



And a photograph of the "Rock of Gibraltar", with its "head in the clouds":



** - "I'm fixing a hole[/b] where the rain[/b] gets in";[/i]
which was an oblique reference to this song line from the play "My Fair Lady",
which was well-known in 1968: "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!"[/b][/i]
So, in other words, "the rain" and "a hole" were clues to Spain being a significant location, and
specifically, the "hill" called "The Rock of Gibraltar."

( 'Moor' to come )

[fourthousandholes]

A cartoon representation of the two land masses, with a 'meanie' crawling out of "the hole".
The Beatles are on the Gibraltar side (note shape), a fact which is being purposefully pointed out.



from Glass Onion, (situation # 1):

"Well here’s another place you can go
Where everything flows[/color]"[/i]

from Glass Onion, (situation #6):

"Well here’s another place you can be.
Listen to me![/color]
Fixing a hole in the ocean "[/i]

He wants you to know about a place you can go; a place you can be.
Chicago! ;D

But why?

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "Gibraltar?!", coming up next on most of these NIR stations!

[fourthousandholes]

Charlie Allman and Michael Jackson married in Gibralter, March 20th, 1969.


It's slightly amusing to see that the stamps were cut so as to leave Michael out of the picture.

[tkp1966]

This is funny if you think about it.
The White album as it is called, is because it has no name right and it's also a double album.
So it is a UNKNOWN DOUBLE album

[fourthousandholes]

I never thought of that tkp1966. An interesting and witty observation.

I've mentioned this in other places on this site, but Neil Young once said that his song
"Cowgirl In the Sand" was about "the beaches of Spain", which, at the time he made the
statement, he admitted he'd never been to. Here's the link for reference:

www.thrasherswheat.org/fot.htm#cits

"This is a song I wrote about the beaches in Spain. I've never been to
the beaches in Spain. It's just my idea of what it's like over there."

It was a curious statement for him to make, because one of the verses in the song describes
the way an inscription on a (modern) tombstone or mausoleum appears:

"Purple words on a grey background"

Also the cowgirl in the song is buried in the sand.

So we have a reference to a tomb, and a burial, and beaches, in Spain, in the song on at least
one occassion.

Another song I've mentioned before is Elton John's song "Daniel",
which talks about a person whose
eyes have died, being taken in a plane to Spain.
Another reference to a (presumably) dead person and Spain.
Now, to be sure, the person's eyes seem to have "died" while he was yet alive, but the lyrics
clearly suggest that, at the time the song was written,
the entire person, "Daniel",
was dead, having become "a star in the sky", though Elton had evidently seen him heading
for Spain while he was yet alive.

Another dead person in Spain.

So what's the point?
The point is that in "Glass Onion", John tells us where Paul was buried (as did Neil Young and Elton John):
At Gibralter; in "Strawberry Fields" (under water), in the hole in the ocean, as is evident
by the watery sounding end of "Glass Onion", and by the watery sounds and imagery
of "Strawberry Fields". A place where "every thing flows"; a place "in the ocean"; the body having
apparently first been found washed up on the beach, and having decayed there for quite some time:**

Conquistador
Procol Harum
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnQNPbdsLCs

Conquistador your stallion stands in need of company
And like some angel's haloed brow
You reek of purity
I see your armor plated breast
Has long since lost its sheen
And in your death mask face
There are no signs which can be seen

And though I hoped for something to find
I could see no place to unwind

Conquistador a vulture sits, upon your silver sheath
And in your rusty scabbard now, the sand has taken seed
And though your jewel-encrusted blade
Has not been plundered still
The sea has washed across your face
And taken of its fill

And though I hoped for something to find
I could see no place to unwind

Conquistador there is no time, I must pay my respect
And though I came to jeer at you
I leave now with regret
And as the gloom begins to fall
I see there is no, only all
Though you came with sword held high
You did not conquer, only die.

And though I hoped for something to find
I could see no place to unwind
And though I hoped for something to find
I could see no place to unwind
----------

Perhaps there's a marker; a stone surface with purple words on a grey background,
to mark the spot on the beach. I doubt that it says "James Paul McCartney" on it.
Probably something a bit more subtle. But his spirit would live, atop Gibralter, where he could
confab with the deities abiding there, and be present for John's wedding as well.

** Hear also: Pink Floyd's "Signs of Life" and Bill's "Smile Away"

But there's more. Of course.

[il ras]

fourthousandholes said:

Spain being a significant location, and
specifically, the "hill" called "The Rock of Gibraltar."

Gibraltar is not in Spain...

[fourthousandholes]

Oops!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar

"Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory shares a land border with Spain to the north. Gibraltar has historically been an important base for the British Armed Forces and is the site of a Royal Navy base. It is probably most famous for the geological formation the Rock of Gibraltar.

The name of the territory is derived from the original Arabic name Jabal Ţāriq (جبل طارق), meaning "mountain of Tariq", or from Gibr al-Ţāriq, meaning "rock of Tariq"). It refers to the Berber Umayyad general Tariq ibn-Ziyad, who led the initial incursion into Iberia in advance of the main Moorish force in 711. Earlier, it was known as Mons Calpe, one of the Pillars of Hercules. Today, Gibraltar is known colloquially as "Gib" or "the Rock".

The sovereignty of Gibraltar is a major issue of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations. Spain requests the return of sovereignty, ceded by Spain in perpetuity in 1713. The overwhelming majority of Gibraltarians strongly oppose this, along with any proposal of shared sovereignty."

------

Even so, in most peoples' minds it is "in Spain" just as Vatican City is "in Rome", even though
technically it's not. I think the clues hold, therefore.
But I appreciate the correction. We want to be as accurate as possible here. Sometimes.

[fourthousandholes]

So is any of this true? Nope.
Not a bit of it. (At least for today.... ;D)

Paul was the "Joker". ("Got to be a joker, he just do what he please.")

"I told you about Strawberry Fields.
The place where nothing is real."

I mean, the dude keeps showing up! He seems to be alive:

piano man


fast walker


horse guy


As Neil Young wrote (about Paul) in his song "The Last Trip to Tulsa":

"Well, I used to be asleep you know
With blankets on my bed. ("I'm Only Sleeping")
I stayed there for a while
'Til they discovered I was dead. ("dead") (The fans "discovered" it.)
The coroner was friendly
And I liked him quite a lot.
If I hadn't 've been a woman
I guess I'd never have been caught.
They gave me back my house and car
And nothing more was said." (The cover-up continued.)

As JoJo wrote:
"The piece of paper in the violin case has partial lyrics to "Yesterday"."



--------

Hey man, it's Easter Sunday. You knew we couldn't just leave him in the grave!
He had to be alive; at least for today! ;D
In any case, as has already been mentioned, we have:
"the Walrus and me"..."about as close as can be".
"Glass Onion" is a song about death and resurrection.
(Ahem: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAhDP2ZIobw )
(And yes, he gives the finger at 1:20.)

More to come; needless to say.