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Strawberry Fields Forever

John Lennon: Vocals, coustic guitar, bongos, mellotron
Paul McCartney: Mellotron, bass guitar, electric guitar, timpani, bongos
George Harrison: Electric slide guitar, svarmndal, timpani, maracas
Ringo Starr: Drums, percussion

Mal Evans: Tambourine
Neil Aspinall: Guiro
Terry Doran: Maracas
Tony Fisher: Trumpet
Greg Bowen: Trumpet
Derek Watkins: Trumpet
Stanley Roderick: Trumpet
John Hall: Cello
Derek Simpson: Cello
Norman Jones: Cello

Recorded November 24, 28, 29 and December 8, 9, 15, 21, 22 1966.

Available on:
Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles 1967-1970(The Blue Album)
Anthology 2

Strawberry Field is a Salvation Army orphanage near Lennon's childhood home in Woolton, Liverpool. John used to play there with his friends as a child. It's perhaps reasonable to assume that Lennon's childhhood memories of play and innocense sparked the initial idea to this song. One should however also take into account the fact that Lennon frequently had hallucinating experiences with the drug LSD during this song writing period. A third factor is that Lennon's childhood had been far from uncomplicated. He had, at least to some extent, been an orphan himself. His father had left him when he was little. When his mother Julia had a child with another man, John was taken care of by Julia's sister Mimi, who raised him. At the age 17, as John was developing a closer reltionship to is mother again, she died after being hit by a car when crossing the road. It's not hard to understand why there often was a sense of bitterness in John's voice.

"Before the very first recording of 'Strawberry Fields Forever' John stood opposite me in the studio and played me the song on his acoustic guitar. It was absolutely lovely," recalls producer George Martin in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions.

Strawberry Fields Forever started out with a quite straight-forward recording of a rythm track, conisting of vocals, guitars, drums, maracas and mellotron (played by Paul). This take was recorded at 53 cycles per second so that it sounded faster on replay. (This version of the song can be heard on Anthology 2.)

The melltron was a new instrument at the time, and the Beatles were one of the first to use it on a recording. It was a precursor of the string synthesizer, and it could produce sound effects as well as flutes, brass and string sounds. (The Musicians' Union even tried to stop manufacturing of the mellotron because of the way it reproduced the sounds of other instruments.)

A couple of weeks after the first recording, Lennon decided to re-record the song all together. This time trumpets and cellos were brought in. Ringo's cymbals were recorded seperately and played backwards, and Paul and George played timpani and bongos. Beatles assistant Mal Evans was assigned to play the tambourine. The day after, George added a swordmandel (and Indian instrument) to the mix.

Version 1 and 2 of Strawberry Fields Forever now sounded completely different. The problem was that John liked both recordings. That's when he got the idea of joining the two versions together. The fact that the two versions were in different keys and different tempos didn't stop him. "You can fix it," he told producer George Martin.

"With the grace of God and a bit of luck we made it," Martin said later.

He and engineer Geoff Emerick managed to speed up the remix of the first version, and then slowed down the remix of the second to make them match. The two versions were still a semitone different, so they had to decrease the pitch of version 1 at the join. This edit can actually be heard precisely 60 seconds into the song.

"It sticks out like a sore thumb to me," Martin said.

Those who listen hard enough can also hear John mutter the words "cranberry sauce" somewhere in the song. Some claim he says "I buried Paul," but "cranberry sauc" sounds more like the typically silly joke that would amuse Lennon.

Strawberry Fields Forever was released as double A-sided single with Penny Lane in the US on Februry 13 1967 (and on February 17 in the UK). It reached number 8 in the US, while Penny Lane made it to number 1. The Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane-single reached number 2 in the UK.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you can't, you know, tune in
but it's all right
That is I think it's not too bad

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

Always know sometimes think it's me
But you know I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean, ah yes
but it's all wrong
that is I think I disagree

Let me take you down
cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever
Strawberry fields forever
strawberry fields forever