I hear this lyric in “I Am The Walrus” and “Mrs. Robinson” but I have no idea what it means nor the significance of it in either song. What do the members of the SDMB have to say?
My Coo Cachoo Alvin Stardust 1974
I don’t think it has any more intrinsic meaning than ‘la la laaaa’ or ‘hey nonny nonny no’ - it’s just a string of syllables that worked in that song for that songwriter. There’s probably a name for it …
The lyric in “I Am The Walrus” is “goo goo ga joob”. It’s from Finnegans Wake.
I’ve long thought that Lennon was experimenting with the sounds and rhythms of the words rather than their meanings when he wrote Walrus.
And yeah, he might have been doing some other kind of experimenting also.
That is an excellent article!
For a large part of his career, John Lennon didn’t seem to feel obligated to write a song with a particular meaning. This was in that period.
ETA, and I think the same is true of Simon and Garfunkel at that time.
Oh, in Mrs. Robinson, it was a reference to Walrus. And a left-handed drug reference.
That is a fact, is it? :rolleyes:
Singers (and songwriters) have been using nonsense syllables in songs since time immemorial. Hey nonny nonny no, folderol da diddle.
According to Wikipedia:
So I’d say he paid plenty of attention to the words – enough attention to make sure they were nonsensical but vaguely symbolic sounding at least.
It means “Did you ever wake up with them bullfrogs on your mind?”.
The Rutles changed the lyric to “Do a poo POO.”
Lennon later regretted making the walrus the focus of the song, as he was going for a somewhat sinister vibe, and the carpenter was the real badguy of the duo. Though after his infamous remarks about Jesus a year or so previously, if he’d written a song called “I Am the Carpenter,” you can just imagine the controversy!
Indeed! Nice to know I’m not the only one who fell for the Finnegans Wake story. Then again, there’s no way I was going to read it for conformation.
I know what that’s a sure sign of. 
For all the latest medical poop
Call Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.
Poo poo pa-doop.
“Smoke pot, smoke pot! Everybody smoke pot!”
as much as some folks say that’s NOT what they’re singing at the end, it’s ALL i can hear!
Lennon said it was “Got one … Got one … Everybody’s got one.”
Gesundheit, Catherwood.
That’s what the women of the chorus are singing. The men are singing “Oom-pah, oom-pah, stick it up your jumper” (pronounced “joompah”).