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The Beatles · S8 E1
Strawberry Fields Forever
John reaches back to a childhood orphanage garden in Woolton and creates psychedelia's greatest moment. Two different recordings spliced together by George Martin
Almería, Spain, September 1966. John Lennon sits alone in a rented apartment between takes of a war film he already regrets making, picks up an acoustic guitar, and starts writing about a Salvation Army children's home in Liverpool he hasn't seen since he was a teenager.
"I Am the Walrus" (The Beatles, 1967). When the Beatles stopped touring and locked themselves in Abbey Road Studios, they discovered they could make sounds no band had ever made. This is the wildest destination of that journey: an orchestra of strings, horns, and cellos, a BBC radio broadcast of King Lear mixed in live, and lyrics John Lennon wrote specifically to confuse anyone who tried to analyze them. It started with "Strawberry Fields Forever." It ended up here.
I Am the Walrus, The Beatles (1967)
The song began when Lennon heard a police siren and started singing two notes in its rhythm, creating that rising and falling "I am he as you are he" melody. The Mike Sammes Singers, a session vocal group better known for easy listening, were brought in to chant nonsense phrases including "oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper." During the final mix, George Martin fed a live BBC Radio broadcast through the console, and a performance of Shakespeare's King Lear happened to be airing, with the line "sit you down, father, rest you" landing permanently in the song. The arrangement never repeats: listen for how the orchestration shifts every few bars, mirroring the lyrical chaos with musical chaos.
Sources
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988.
MacDonald, Ian. "Revolution in the Head." Chicago Review Press, 2005.
November 24, 1966
The Beatles haven't been in the same room for months. George spent September in India studying sitar with Ravi Shankar, Paul composed a film score for "The Family Way," and John grew a mustache and round glasses on a film set in Spain. When they reconvene at Abbey Road Studios on November 24, they are four individuals with four different headspaces, and the first song they tackle is John's new composition about a garden in Woolton.
Sources
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988.
The Beatles. "The Beatles Anthology." Chronicle Books, 2000.
“John said, 'I like the beginning of the first one and the end of the second one. Can you join them together?' I said, 'There are two things against it. They're in different keys and different tempos.' He said, 'Yeah, but you can fix it.'”
— George Martin
TAP TO REVEAL: How did George Martin splice two incompatible recordings into one song?
Strawberry Field, Woolton, Liverpool
The Salvation Army children's home where young John Lennon climbed over the wall to play in the gardens. The original Victorian house was demolished in 1973, but the famous red gates became a pilgrimage site. The Salvation Army opened the grounds as a visitor attraction and training center in 2019.
The Garden
John grew up at 251 Menlove Avenue, just around the corner from Strawberry Field. The Salvation Army home held summer garden parties, and John would drag his Aunt Mimi to every one. The name lingered for twenty years, becoming a symbol of the dreamy, safe childhood space he'd lost. When he wrote the song in Spain, the words poured out as a meditation on perception, identity, and the slippery nature of what's real.
Sources
The Beatles. "The Beatles Anthology." Chronicle Books, 2000.
Norman, Philip. "John Lennon: The Life." Ecco, 2008.
Strawberry Fields Forever Sessions
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, The Beatles (1967)
John insisted the title came from a painting his four-year-old son Julian made of a classmate named Lucy O'Donnell, not from LSD, though nobody believed him then and few believe him now. The song drifts between waltz-time verses and a pounding 4/4 chorus, mirroring the hallucinatory journey of the lyrics. It's the purest expression of the psychedelic imagination that "Strawberry Fields Forever" unlocked, and it sounds like walking through a dream where all the rules keep changing.
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, The Beatles (1967)
"Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies." The imagery reads like a children's storybook written under the influence of something considerably stronger than tea. Julian Lennon's school drawing of classmate Lucy O'Donnell inspired the title, but the lyrics owe more to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass" and John's habit of reading Edward Lear's nonsense poetry to Julian before bed.
What kept 'Strawberry Fields Forever' from reaching #1 in the UK?
While John looks inward to a childhood garden, Paul looks outward to a Liverpool street. His answer is "Penny Lane": a barber, a banker, a fireman, and a piccolo trumpet solo he hears on a Bach recording and insists George Martin put in the song.
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