Good Morning/Good Afternoon/Good Evening. Song of The Day. Strawberry Fields Forever is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. The song was written by John Lennon and attributed to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. It was inspired by Lennons memories of playing in the garden of Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army childrens home near where he lived. Strawberry Fields Forever was recorded for possible inclusion on the (as yet untitled) album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band[4] (1967), being the first song recorded for the sessions, but was instead released in February 1967 as a double A-side single with Paul McCartneys Penny Lane. Strawberry Fields Forever reached number eight in the United States, with numerous critics describing it as one of the groups best recordings. It is one of the defining works of the psychedelic rock genre and has been covered by many artists. The song was later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour LP (though not on the British double EP package of the same name). The Strawberry Fields memorial in New York Citys Central Park is named after the song. Strawberry Field was the name of a Salvation Army childrens home just around the corner from Lennons childhood home in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool.[9] Lennon and his childhood friends Pete Shotton, Nigel Walley, and Ivan Vaughan used to play in the wooded garden behind the home. One of Lennons childhood treats was the garden party held each summer in Calderstones Park, near the home, where a Salvation Army band played. Lennons aunt Mimi Smith recalled: As soon as we could hear the Salvation Army band starting, John would jump up and down shouting, Mimi, come on. Were going to be late. Lennons Strawberry Fields Forever and McCartneys Penny Lane shared the theme of nostalgia for their early years in Liverpool. Although both referred to actual locations, the two songs also had strong surrealistic and psychedelic overtones. Producer George Martin said that when he first heard Strawberry Fields Forever, he thought it conjured up a hazy, impressionistic dreamworld.The period of the songs writing was one of change and dislocation for Lennon. The Beatles had just retired from touring after one of the most difficult periods of their career, including the more popular than Jesus controversy and the bands unintentional snubbing of Philippines First Lady Imelda Marcos. Lennon talked about the song in 1980: I was different all my life. The second verse goes, No one I think is in my tree. Well, I was too shy and self-doubting. Nobody seems to be as hip as me is what I was saying. Therefore, I must be crazy or a genius—I mean it must be high or low , and explaining that the song was psycho-analysis set to music. Lennon began writing the song in Almería, Spain, during the filming of Richard Lesters How I Won the War in September–October 1966. The earliest demo of the song, recorded in Almería, had no refrain and only one verse: Theres no one on my wavelength / I mean, its either too high or too low / That is you cant you know tune in but its all right / I mean its not too bad. He revised the words to this verse to make them more obscure, then wrote the melody and part of the lyrics to the refrain (which then functioned as a bridge and did not yet include a reference to Strawberry Fields). He then added another verse and the mention of Strawberry Fields. The first verse on the released version was the last to be written, close to the time of the songs recording. For the refrain, Lennon was again inspired by his childhood memories: the words nothing to get hung about were inspired by Aunt Mimis strict order not to play in the grounds of Strawberry Field, to which Lennon replied, They cant hang you for it. The first verse Lennon wrote became the second in the released version, and the second verse Lennon wrote became the last in the release. The working title was Its Not Too Bad,[29] and Geoff Emerick, the sound engineer, remembered it being just a great, great song, that was apparent from the first time John sang it for all of us, playing an acoustic guitar.[16] Recording began on 24 November 1966, in Abbey Roads Studio Two on a 4-track machine. It took 45 hours to record, spread over five weeks. The song was meant to be on the bands 1967 album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, but was released as a single instead. The band recorded three distinct versions of the song. After Lennon played the song for the other Beatles on his acoustic guitar, the band recorded the first take. Lennon played an Epiphone Casino; McCartney played a Mellotron, a new home instrument purchased by Lennon on 12 August 1965 (with another model hired in after encouragement from Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues); Starr played drums, and Harrison played electric guitar. The first recorded take began with the verse, Living is easy..., instead of the chorus, Let me take you down, which starts the released version. The first verse also led directly to the second, with no chorus between. Lennons vocals were automatically double-tracked from the words Strawberry Fields Forever through the end of the last verse. The last verse, Always, no sometimes..., has three-part harmonies, with McCartney and Harrison singing dreamy background vocals. This version was soon abandoned and went unreleased until the The Beatles Anthology series in 1996. Four days later the band reassembled to try a different arrangement. The second version of the song featured McCartneys Mellotron introduction followed by the refrain. They recorded five takes of the basic tracks for this arrangement (two of which were false starts) with the last being chosen as best and subjected to further overdubs. Lennons final vocal was recorded with the tape running fast so that when played back at normal speed the tonality would be altered, giving his voice a slurred sound. This version was used for the first minute of the released recording. After recording the second version of the song, Lennon wanted to do something different with it, as Martin remembered: Hed wanted it as a gentle dreaming song, but he said it had come out too raucous. He asked me if I could write him a new line-up with the strings. So I wrote a new score (with four trumpets and three cellos) and we recorded that, but he didnt like it. Meanwhile, on 8 and 9 December, another basic track was recorded, using a Mellotron, electric guitar, piano, backwards-recorded cymbals, and the swarmandel (or swordmandel), an Indian version of the zither. After reviewing the tapes of Martins version and the original, Lennon told Martin that he liked both versions, although Martin had to tell Lennon that the orchestral score was at a faster tempo and in a higher key (B major) than the first version (A major). Lennon said, You can fix it, George, giving Martin and Emerick the difficult task of joining the two takes together. With only a pair of editing scissors, two tape machines, and a vari-speed control, Emerick compensated for the differences in key and speed by increasing the speed of the first version and decreasing the speed of the second. He then spliced the versions together, starting the orchestral score in the middle of the second chorus. (Since the first version did not include a chorus after the first verse, he also spliced in the first seven words of the chorus from elsewhere in the first version.) The pitch-shifting in joining the versions gave Lennons lead vocal a slightly other-worldly swimming quality. Some vocalising by Lennon is faintly audible at the end of the song, picked up as leakage onto one of the drum microphones (close listening shows Lennon making other comments to Ringo). In the Paul is Dead hoax these were taken to be Lennon saying I buried Paul.In 1974, McCartney said, That wasnt I buried Paul at all—that was John saying cranberry sauce. It was the end of Strawberry Fields. Thats Johns humour. John would say something totally out of sync, like cranberry sauce. If you dont realise that Johns apt to say cranberry sauce when he feels like it, then you start to hear a funny little word there, and you think, Aha!. Shortly before his death in 1980, Lennon expressed dissatisfaction with the final version of the song, saying it was badly recorded and going so far as to accuse McCartney of subconsciously sabotaging the recording. youtube/watch?v=nehRB1FTeTo
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 10:45:12 +0000
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