By the autumn of 1966, The Beatles had spent nearly four grueling years on the road. Following an exhausting cycle of touring, radio appearances, TV shows, interviews, movies, and studio recordings, the band stopped live performance on August 29, 1966, and took a break for several months. While in Spain filming “How I Won the War,” John Lennon began composing a simple song about his childhood that turned into something far less idyllic.
Memories of a Liverpool Childhood
On September 20, 1966, Lennon arrived in Santa Isabel, Spain, to start filming. Although he thought that movies might be his next career after being a Beatle, the process of filmmaking bored him. When confronted with boredom, Lennon usually turned to music as a distraction. Away from the film set, randomly strumming on his guitar, Lennon reflected on his early life in Liverpool and tried to create a song out of those fond memories.
As a young boy, Lennon lived near a Salvation Army orphanage named Strawberry Field. During the summer months, he and his aunt (Mimi Smith) would celebrate the village fête held there. While the song was taking shape, Lennon altered the last name of the orphanage. He also transformed the feelings of ecstasy he felt as a child into symbols of confusion, isolation, and despair.
The Composing Tape
Throughout his career, Lennon made rough tape recordings of his work. Many of those recordings contain only one or two versions of a song in progress. “Strawberry Fields Forever,” however, is an exception because the surviving composition tape traces the song from the beginning.
Approximately 25 minutes of that tape appears on Pegboy 1008, which contains Lennon demos from Santa Isabel as well as those recorded at his English home (Kenwood). The tape reveals Lennon struggling through acoustic guitar demos, electric guitar overdubs, rehearsals, new electric guitar demos, and vocal overdubs before even entering Abbey Road Studios. In the entire Beatles' canon, “Strawberry Fields Forever” is one of the few compositions where a song can be heard taking shape.
The Santa Isabel Demos
The composing tape begins with 0:27 of warming up on an acoustic guitar. Lennon plays a riff that sounds like “Day Tripper” or “Paperback Writer" before the tape stops abruptly.
When the tape restarts, Lennon begins work on a song originally called “It's Not Too Bad.” At this stage, only part of the second verse was written. During Take 1 (0:47), Lennon mumbles in places where words are missing. Takes 2-3 each last about 30 seconds longer, but the second verse is still incomplete. Nevertheless, the melody progresses as Lennon plays the same musical phrases over and over again — willing himself to move the song forward.
By Take 4 (1:46), lyrics for the second verse are almost complete. Lennon sings the verse twice before sketching out a rough refrain (chorus). The sound quality of the tape is poor, so it is not clear if “Strawberry Fields” is mentioned yet.
Takes 5-6 (2:13) were recorded in a bathroom, as Lennon liked the way the tiles distorted his voice with echo. By then, he had added half of the first line for the third verse and completed more of the refrain. For the first time, the phrase “Strawberry Fields” is heard.
The Kenwood Demos
The Kenwood demos were recorded after Lennon returned home from Spain on November 7, 1966, but before new EMI recording sessions began on November 24. The first two recordings reveal Lennon overdubbing an electric guitar and double-tracked vocals onto the original demo. By now, verses 2-3 were complete and the refrain was finished. The song, however, still needed a beginning and an ending. Dissatisfied with his progress, Lennon started over.
The tape continues with 8 takes of a new electric guitar composing sequence. Take 1 (0:37) breaks down in the middle of the second verse. Takes 2-4 are also fragments, where Lennon wrestles with the sound and is unable to get beyond the second verse. At the end of Take 2, he laughs and excuses his mistake by saying, “It just sort of goes too quiet there.” After Take 4 breaks down, Lennon chuckles and asks in mock irony, “Can I do it, can I do it?” Over the next two takes, Lennon tries to solve the problem by adjusting the rhythm of the song, which proves no more successful and causes him to mutter, “Doesn't work like that!”
Take 7 (2:07) is nearly complete, even though Lennon runs the second verse directly into the third verse without using the refrain. Other than mixing up a few words, the song resembles what it would become — even if still incomplete. Take 8 (1:56) makes no musical progress from Take 7, other than being played with far more confidence.
From Light to Darkness
As originally conceived, “Strawberry Fields Forever” was a gentle ballad about a happy childhood memory. The longer Lennon worked on the song, the darker it became. Fueled by an unhappy marriage, increasing drug use, and a feeling of isolation as an artist, the song became less idyllic and more of a reflection of the confusion and despair Lennon was feeling.
The final Kenwood demos reveal this duality of light and dark. While overdubbing vocals onto the composing tape, Lennon used a mellotron (an early version of an electronic synthesizer) to add weird sound effects to the second verse. Someone enters the room and causes an interruption, which leads Lennon to shout, “Shut it or I'll smack your face in . . . get out of here.”
As soon as the intruder leaves, Lennon returns to the gentle song inspired by his childhood. Even after 40 years, the change in mood is still shocking. When he entered the studio on November 24 to begin recording, the song would grow even darker.
References
-------. 1997. It's Not Too Bad:The Evolution of Strawberry Fields Forever. [CD] Pegboy 1008.
Norman P. 2008. John Lennon: The Life. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
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