John Lennon and the Beatles were my inspiration in the late 1960's to start writing songs and playing guitar. I was stunned when John was murdered on 12/8/1980. The next day, I sat down at my piano and started expressing my great sense of loss in music. I started weaving together some titles of the Beatles songs, especially the ones that John sang. The first song to come to mind was "I Am the Walrus", an allusion to Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Other songs streamed into my consciousness, including "We All Shine On", "Strawberry Fields', "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Penny Lane" (sung by Paul), "All You Need is Love", and "Imagine". Verse 2 alludes to the Beatles first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, 1964 (some time ago one winter). I scribbled the chords and lyrics on a piece of notebook paper and completed the song in twenty minutes. I played the song for my producer and it impacted him immediately. He scheduled some time in Nashville at the Woodland Sound Studio and we booked some members of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and, a few days later, Elegy for the Walrus was birthed.