Strawberry Fields Forever

Highly Appreciated

STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER
 
 
“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.  “Strawberry Fields Forever” was released in February 1967 as a double A-side single with Paul McCartney’s “Penny Lane”; numerous critics describe the song as one of the group’s best recordings.  The song was later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour LP.  It is one of the defining works of the psychedelic rock genre and has been covered by many artists.  The Strawberry Fields memorial in New York City’s Central Park is named after the song.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Four of the five songs on Side 1 of the Queen Anne’s Lace album are covers, and familiar ones at that:  “The Fool on the Hill” opens the album and is a fine if spare rendition of the Beatles song that was almost lost among the torrent of creativity that was the Magical Mystery Tour album of 1967 – besides the songs from the ill-fated Beatles TV movie of the same name, Magical Mystery Toursome of the band’s best singles were also included:  Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Hello Goodbye”, “All You Need is Love”, and others.  It probably would have had a shot at being a successful single, except that “The Fool on the Hill” had already been a Top 5 hit in 1968 for Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 (a self-defeating band name that had already been renamed once from Brasil ’65). 
 
(August 2010)
 
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One of the early fruits of this new stance is a Beatles single from that period, “Penny Lane” b/w “Strawberry Fields Forever”.  Penny Lane is a real street in Liverpool, near one of John Lennon’s boyhood homes; the actual place that Paul McCartney was writing about was a bus stop where he would have to change buses when going to John’s house (and vice versa).  Strawberry Field is a Salvation Army children’s home in Liverpool; in his song, John was writing about the garden there where he used to play as a child.  Originally planned for the Sgt. Pepper album, EMI Records pressured the band into releasing them only as a single; the songs were later included on the U.S. version of the Magical Mystery Tour album. 
 
(June 2015)
 
Last edited: March 22, 2021