Strawberry Fields Forever Lyrics



Lennon/McCartney


Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
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 hungabout.
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 hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Always, no sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think I know I mean a '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 hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.

 
Lead Singer: John

Recording: 11/24/66, 11/28/66, 11/29/66, 23/8/66, 12/9/66, 12/15/66, 12/21/66
Mixing: 11/28/66, 11/29/66, 12/9/66, 12/15/66, 12/22/66, 12/29/66, 10/26/71
Length: 4:05
Take: 26

Anomalies

0:59
Perhaps the most famous Beatles edit ever. In fact, it is actually two edits. The famous one is between take 7 and take 26. Take 7 was slower and a semitone lower in key. The two were edited together right between the words "'cause I'm" and "going to". The less known edit occurs right before the words "Let me take you down". It's also less noticeable. The edit can be heard clearly by listening to the drums and mellotron on the left. The drums go very dead, and the mellotron stops. At the same time on the right, the orchestra appears from nowhere.
1:17, 2:01
Counting from one to four
1:22 * NEW *
Swordmandel (Swarmandela) fill is flubbed at the end. This mistake should/could have been mixed out! There is a "ting" remaining at the end, out of place.
2:43-2:44 * NEW *
Nasty click from one of the cellos (right channel)
3:00-3:09 * NEW *
3:00 - Sounds like the guitar gets unplugged (right, after first flourish)
3:06 - Soft click, like a switch
3:08 - Slight drop in level
3:09 - Soft pop, the guitar returns with next flourish
3:27-4:05
Left channel, lots of talking, sounds like directions of sorts. From bootlegs, this seems to be "that's terrific","here comes the 'weeoo' (referring to the droning guitar note)
3:57, 4:03
John mutters the famous "Cranberry Sauce" twice, followed by "My mother made it for me." Paul is dead fanatics insist that what John really says is "I Buried Paul," but that somehow doesn't go with "My mother made it for me." Note that "My mother..." cannot be heard on any released version.
Can someone enlighten me as to where it *can* be heard?? (Bootlegs?) The song fades out in all cases before the end of the second "Cranberry Sauce." The German release of Magical Mystery Tour fades out later than other releases (and so, therefore, does the CD), but still too soon to hear the "My mother..." statement.
Listen to the bootleg versions, they carry both "cranberrys" plus lots of shouting from John to Ringo, "What are you playing it","Alright Calm down ringo"
Frank Daniels is sure that he hears "I'm very hoarse" instead of the claimed "Cranberry Sauce" (German Version). He also mentions the morse code, supposedly "J.L.". This is most certainly not "JL", and is in fact rather poor morse code, if it is meant to be that. (Like the cover to Help, which doesn't say "Help" in semaphore!)
Marty Blaise says:
"I'm an amateur radio operator and at one time I could copy the code at 20 words per minute. The closest thing that I can guess is that the first letter is a K ... my guess is it's a bunch of beeps with no meaning, just someone having fun."

* NEW *
I've listened to this sound more recently, and compared to the sound of the higher notes on the Mellotron "Flute" setting. It's a high note being tapped on the mellotron keyboard, and really doesn't equate to anything sensible in Morse. It's music, so let it be :) For those who want to find the "Morse" it is at 0:15-0:20 in the released version (left). In bootlegs of other takes, it repeats at other places in the song, always after "cause I'm going to..."
Strawberry Field was a Salvation Army home in Liverpool where John Lennon used to go. He had fond memories of the place that inspired this.
John's aunt Mimi did not like John going to Strawberry Fields, as it was basically an orphanage and she thought they would lead John astray. John liked going there because having lost his father and later his mother he felt a kinship to the lads. When John and his aunt would argue about his going he would often reply "what are they going to do, hang me?" Thus the line "nothing to get hung about." (thanks, Ken - Hartland, MI)
Lennon: "Strawberry Fields is a real place. After I stopped living at Penny Lane, I moved in with my auntie who lived in the suburbs in a nice semidetached place with a small garden and doctors and lawyers and that ilk living around... not the poor slummy kind of image that was projected in all the Beatles stories. In the class system, it was about half a class higher than Paul, George and Ringo, who lived in government-subsidized housing. We owned our house and had a garden. They didn't have anything like that. Near that home was Strawberry Fields, a house near a boys' reformatory where I used to go to garden parties as a kid with my friends Nigel and Pete we would go there and hang out and sell lemonade bottles for a penny. We always had fun at Strawberry Fields. So that's where I got the name. But I used it as an image. Strawberry Fields forever." (thanks, Conrad - Los Angeles, CA)
Lennon wrote this while he was in Spain working on a movie called How I Won The War.
A distorted voice at the end sounds like "I buried Paul," which fueled rumors that Paul McCartney was dead. The voice is actually Lennon saying, "Cranberry sauce."
There is a memorial to Lennon in Central Park called "Strawberry Fields." It is located across from The Dakota, the building in New York City where Lennon lived.
John donated money to Strawberry Fields before his death. One of its buildings is named "Lennon Hall."
This was released as the flip side of "Penny Lane." The Beatles often released singles that contained a song written by Lennon on one side, and a song written by McCartney on the other. Which single was considered the A-side was sometimes a point of contention.
This was the first Beatles single to break their long-running streak of #1 hits in the UK. If they had not released it with "Penny Lane," they would have beaten the existing #1 by a large margin, but stores recorded sales for one side of the single or the other, which hurt the chart position for this song. (thanks, Confusing - Sydney, Australia)
2 versions were recorded with different instruments and spliced together to make one song. The edit is 59 seconds in.
This was one of the first songs to use a Mellotron, which was an early synthesizer. Lennon played it.
This was the first pop song that faded to silence and then came back. The fake ending drove DJs nuts.
The working title was "It's Not Too Bad." (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, Washington)
Just after Lennon sings, "Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to," there is a series of beeps which, in Morse Code, form the letters "J" and "L." (thanks, Buddy - South Bend, IN)
Peter Gabriel covered this in 1975 on the compilation All This And World War II.
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is the name of a US fan club that publishes a popular Beatles magazine.
Cyndi Lauper performed this at the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park as part of the 2001 special Come Together: A Night For John Lennon's Words And Music. Proceeds from the show went to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on America.


Magical Mystery Tour Lyrics   

How many times this song has been viewed: