Strawberry Fields Forever

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Strawberry Fields Forever is a 1967 song written by John Lennon an performed by The Beatles. It was first released as a single with Penny Lane. It was later released on Magical Mystery Tour.

Contents

Writing

John wrote Strawberry Fields Forever in autumn 1966 while filming How I Won The War in Almeria, Spain. John recalled, "It took me six weeks to write the song. I was writing it all the time I was making the film. And as anybody knows about film work, there's a lot of hanging around." It came from John's recollection of Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army home in Woolton, near his home. Paul McCartney remembered, "I've seen Strawberry Field described as a dull, grimy place next door to him that John imagined to be a beautiful place, but in the summer it wasn't dull and grimy at all: it was a secret garden. John's memory of it wasn't to do with the fact that it was a Salvation Army home; that was up at the house. There was a wall you could bunk over and it was a rather wild garden, it wasn't manicured at all, so it was easy to hide in." John and his childhood friends Pete Shotton and Ivan Vaughan would roam the grounds of Strawberry Field. Every summer, a garden party would be held in the park, which John would always attend. John's aunt 'Mimi' recalled, "As soon as we could hear the Salvation Army band starting, John would jump up and down shouting, 'Mimi, come on. We're going to be late.'" Because of his use of LSD, John's focus of the son also included self-reflection. John would later refer to this and Help! as "one of the few true songs I ever wrote... They were the ones I really wrote from experience and not projecting myself into a situation and writing a nice story about it." John once said, "The second [verse] goes, 'No one I think is in my tree.' Well, what I was trying to say in that line is, 'Nobody seems to be as hip as me, therefore I must be crazy or a genius.' It's the same problem as I had when I was five. Strawberry Fields was psychoanalysis set to music." Because The Beatles had ceased touring in August 1966, they spent several sessions towards the end of 1966 recording without regard to time or budget. John began recording several solo demos around November 1966 in his house in Weybridge, Surrey. A sequence of this is included on Anthology 2, where he tries fingerpicking the chords. He stops playing, saying "I cannae do it," and plays it strumming the chords and singing. In the early versions, the first two verses are sung instead of opening with the chorus. This arrangement was used agin in Take 1, which was also incuded on Anthology 2. It also included a Mellotron and guitar outtro instead of the psychedlic one used on the final version. The Mellotron was then a new instrument. The Beatles were introduced to it by Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues in 1965. Pinder recalls, "I got to know John, Paul, George and Ringo over the years and I introduced them to the 'tron... Within a week all four of them had a Fab-Tron. I knew that I would be rewarded, and the first time I heard Strawberry Fields I was in bliss. It was the closest thing to recording with them, other than my visits to Abbey Road during their recording sessions." The Mellotron had several magnetic tapes of instrument sounds inside, each lasting about eight seconds. These loops imitated instrument sounds. The flue sound was used on Strawberry Fields Forever. Engineer Jerry Boys recalled, "I remember when The Beatles first brought in the Mellotron. It was made mostly for producing sound effects but it also had flutes, brass and string sounds on it. The Beatles used it in a way nobody had ever thought of."

Recording

Much time was spent on the arrangement with George Martin. They recorded several remakes and spent 55 hours in the studio perfecting it. They recorded Take 1 along with several overdubs on November 24, 1966. According to Mark Lewisohn, the lineup was Paul McCartney on Mellotron, John Lennon on lead vocals, George Harrison on guitar and Ringo Starr on drums. They then overdubbed maracas, slide guitar, more lead vocals, and vocal harmonies. On November 28, they recorded takes two through four. Take 3 was a false start. They added Mellotron, drums, guitars, bass, maracas and lead vocals onto the basic track. On November 29, they recorded takes five and six. They added vocals and more instrumentation, which Lewisohn suspects were piano and bass. With these overdubs, it became Take 7. An edit of Take 7 appears on Anthology 2. They attempted yet another remake on December 8. Dave Harries produced, as George Martin and Geoff Emerick were not there. Harries recalls, "They had tickets for the premiere of Cliff Richard's film Finders Keepers and didn't arrive back until about 11 o'clock. Soon after I had lined up the microphones and instruments in the studio that night, ready for the session, The Beatles arrived, hot to record. There was nobody else there but me so I became producer/engineer. We recorded Ringo's cymbals, played them backwards, Paul and George were on timps and bongos, Mal Evans played tambourine, we overdubbed the guitars, everything. It sounded great. When George and Geoff came back I scuttled upstairs because I shouldn't really have been recording them." They recorded fifteen takes, with nine of them being complete. They numbered them nine to twenty-four, though there was no Take 19. An edit of takes 15 and 24 was considered the best at the time. The next day, Ringo Starr overdubbed percussion and reverse cymbals and George Harrison overdubbed svarmandel, a bowed Indian instrument. They had decided that George Martin should score trumpets and cellos, so they were overdubbed on December 15. John also added two new lead vocals on this date. At the end of the second one, John muttered 'Cranberry Sauce' twice. This was included on the final song. On December 21, John added more vocals and a piano track was added, completing recording on the song. However, work on the song was not finished; it still needed to be mixed. John decided that he wanted an edit of November 29's Take 7 and the remake. He asked George Martin to make an edit of the two. Martin recalls, "He said, 'Why don't you join the beginning of the first one to the end of the second one?' 'There are two things against it,' I replied. 'They are in different keys and different tempos. Apart from that, fine.' 'Well,' he said, 'you can fix it!'" On December 22, Martin made the desired edit by speeding up Take 7 and slowing down the remake. With the grace of God, and a bit of luck," said Martin. The edit was around the sixty second mark, right before the words 'going to' in the second chorus. After this edit was made, all work on the song was finished, after more than a month of work.

Recording Sessions


Personnel

The Beatles

Guest Musicians

Production

LOVE Mix

A mix of this song is included on the 2006 remix album LOVE. It begins with an early acoustic demo, then crossfading into Take 1, from that crossfading into the remake of the song. In the outtro, it includes George Martin's piano from In My Life, the brass sections from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, brass and piano from Penny Lane, cello and harpsichord from Piggies, and the coda from Hello, Goodbye. In addition, the end of the Eleanor Rigby/Julia mix includes part of the swarmandal overdub with a reverse echo effect. Also, the mix of I Am The Walrus features the count-in from Take 25 of Strawberry Fields Forever.

Available Versions

  • Demo Take 1, September?/October?/November?, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 2, September?/October?/November?, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 3, September?/October?/November?, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 4, September?/October?/November?, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 5, September?/October?/November?, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 6, September?/October?/November?, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Rehearsal Snippet, September?/October?/November?, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Electric Overdub Rehearsal, November 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Electric Overdub onto demo, November 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Playback Snippet, November 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Vocal Overdub Onto Demo, November 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Playback, November 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 1, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 2, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 3, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 4, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 5, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 6, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 7, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Demo Take 7 edit, November, 1966, (Anthology 2)
  • Demo Take 8, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Mellotron and Vocal Overdubs onto demo, November, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 1, November 24, 1966, (Bootlegs, Anthology 2)
  • Take 2, November 28, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 3, November 28, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 4, November 28, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 5, November 29, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 6, November 29, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 7, November 29, 1966, (Bootlegs, Partially included on master mix, Anthology 2)
  • Take 15, December 8, 1966, (Partially included on early mixes, partially included in master mix)
  • Take 24, December 8, 1966, (Partially included in early mixes and master mix)
  • Take 25 (edit of 15 and 24), December 9, 1966, (Bootlegs, Partially in master mix)
  • Take 26 instrumental, December 15, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 26 with lead vocal overdubs, December 15, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Take 26 RM9, December 15, 1966, (Bootlegs)
  • Get Back sessions, January 27, 1969, (Bootlegs)
  • LOVE Mix, (LOVE)

Available On

Cover Versions

Source

Retrieved from "http://www.beatleswiki.org/wiki/Strawberry_Fields_Forever"
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