a first listen of strawberry fields forever by the beetles this is the third beatles track i am
reacting to you on this channel this is another one from their revolutionary album sergeant
peppers cut i actually find out at the end of the reaction and i've decided to put this in in the
beginning too that this isn't actually making on to sergeant pepper's this was intended to be on
sergeant pepper's uh george martin has publicly stated that taking both penny lane and this song
off sergeant peppers was a big mistake it felt like um since my first uh beetles truck i reviewed
on this channel i have learned a little bit about the band and uh this album came at a sort of a
turning point in the band's history where they actually stopped touring and they turned into a
solely recording band where all of their musical output just was intended to be listened to through
albums and so i think this brought about a lot of experimentation in the studio and
sergeant purpose is sort of a testament to this shift um certainly a day in the life of held up
to this uh sort of experimental shift of theirs it was a really really interesting track with
sort of different phrases throughout and to me it sounded like a very um lsd-inspired song
and so i'm kind of expecting more of the same from this track um with the track being called
strawberry fields forever i imagine it is a track inspired from perhaps a place that the
the guys visited maybe lennon or mccartney visited when they were kids and yeah i'm just
excited to sort of get into this music but before then i should add that 95 of you guys
are actually not subscribed to the channel so if you do have a second um hit the subscribe button
like share it with a friend maybe and all of that stuff helps the channel grow so um thank you for
all of that in advance so with that all being said let's get into the music okay here we go
let me take you down cause i'm going to
okay i usually give super initial takes um i think this song is very much in the
lines along the lines of a day in the life it certainly has a lsd inspired sound to it
um just that little snipper right in the beginning really did sound like um almost you could imagine
it being used in a movie where they're trying to like tell the backstory of a character like
a flashback or something just that section right in the beginning so i imagine this is perhaps
inspired by a memory of lennon it seems like this is sung by lennon perhaps it will change
but i'm actually very excited about that um i do enjoy lennon's writing a whole lot so
uh let's back this up again i might actually just play that first snippet once again um here we go
yeah just this part you can imagine like a flashback
let me take you down cause i'm going to strawberry fields
nothing is real and nothing to get hung about strawberry feels 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
okay there's actually so much going on in the instrumentation uh there's a lot of sort of almost
the sound effects is the way i'd call them i don't know if there's even an instrument like
this weird buzzing noise that's going on in terms of lyrically there's kind of a couple ways you
can take this in one sense it's kind of apathetic what lenin's saying is like nothing really matters
um he seems like someone who's like very um
yeah just apathetic towards life i guess done done with life in a sense cynical but there's
also uh interpretation that can be said that it's almost like he's reached a level of like
peace and like enlightenment where he's actually telling you it doesn't matter much to me like
um the highs and lows of life are all just sort of um a part of it you know just take
it for what it is almost it's something that you only get from sort of having a very
um kind of almost life-changing experience that you need to have like a life or death situation
often does that to people um very interesting lyrics i always like lennon's writing i find it
to be like very stimulating mentally i'm going to back this up once again and go go again
wow i think is
let me take you down cause i'm going to strawberry fields
nothing is real i'm helping to get hungry forever
always know sometimes think it's me but you know i know and it's a dream
i think i know i mean yes but it's all wrong that is i think i disagree
let okay i'm gonna pause it once again it's so interesting that listening to
a song i mean these beatles tracks are like taking a class in psychology or something man
um i just think the writing is so brilliant there's so many different ways that you can
take this thing now to me i've commented on the last song from this album that it i felt as if
it was very much inspired by lsd and particularly that those lines about tuning in and dropping out
and then a lot of people also came in and said that lennon was actually inspired by leary timothy
leary and i mean there it is again tune in i don't think he's as someone as smart as lennon was
and as great as a songwriter he was i don't think this is by accident that he's saying things like
tune in i mean he does mean in terms of just tuning into your life but i do think that's a hint
towards his sort of um his connections with leary and his uh his love of what leary's message was
um there's a lot of cool things going on in instrumentation wise because they keep
adding new parts to it i love that about this this album different phases of the song have
different music to it so we had the horns introduced there seemed to be also like uh
almost like an indian guitar maybe a sitter uh sort of sound going on uh i i believe those
are like harrison's um additions to the song usually um he's the man with the lead guitar
i believe i might be wrong about that uh but he certainly has like um sort of interesting
instruments that he adds in which i've learned about um yeah once again with the lyrics man some
really really cool lyrics being uh sort of sung here 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 super interesting
man like uh it really is like a dude who's uh reached this sort of moment of enlightenment
almost that he's not allowing any laws to get to him anymore no highs no loss he's kind of
reached this mid point really cool i'm gonna back this up a bit i think i disagree
let me take you down
nothing is real nothing to get hung about strawberry feels forever
strawberry feels forever i'm going to give a quick shout out to ringo starr who is the
drummer of the band um a lot of these songs i have mentioned the drummers on
almost every instance whether that be with nirvana with growl john bonham who i think is in a league
of his own no disrespect to anyone else um i forgot the guy's uh name from um uh war pigs
uh sorry black sabbath and then you had the drama from gimme shelter all had sort of unique styles
uh ringo has the most unique style i'd say it's uh it's kind of off kilter you know it's like
it's a bit strange it almost he has his own rhythm he plays to he's quite it's quite a
curious uh beat he keeps to but i think he adds so much he adds a new sort of flavor to the song
um with his little feels adding in there um shout out to ringo star man i'm gonna back this up again
strawberry feels forever strawberry feels forever strawberry feels forever
looks like we've got an outro to come again
beos don't really do guitar solos do they i know what's that about this band
whoa
whoa okay super super interesting song man very like mentally stimulating it's like almost taking
a like i was saying like a psychology class or something or class in like literature um now the
songs i've got the video for the track right next to me and it says magic mystery tour bus have i
got the album wrong this whole time strawberry feels forever um i hope i didn't get the actual
thing written by john lennon
dude
let's let's see let's type in sergeant on there was intended for inclusion the forthcoming album
instead with pressure of the recording company management for new product the group were
forced to issue the single and then added to the philosophy the song was later included in the us
oh wow okay it's not actually a song from sergeant peppers okay i had that wrong this whole time
interesting regardless i think it's from a very similar era um okay
look regardless i think this is um in terms of this track musically i'm gonna i'm gonna
talk about what i liked and then also what i didn't like um in terms of what i like
i always i really really love lennon's writing i think his writing is really really brilliant
nothing to take away from paul's writing but i find lennon's
approach to songwriting his philosophies on life it sort of has this dark mysterious element to it
he's always seems to be searching for some kind of answer which i find really cool he's cr he's
um his lyrics have a large dose of cynicism to it as well which i appreciate i think that makes for
um interesting songs not to always be sort of happy and hopeful i'm i'm more down for that
um musically very interesting they added a lot of different elements to the song
they had horns at one part i mean the outro of the of the track can literally be taken
can be used by a song nowadays i hear so many songs nowadays using sections like this and
to think that this band was doing this 60 years ago almost now um it's amazing how far ahead of
their time they were i mean literally like that outro i could hear that on a frank ocean album
um on nights for example halfway through the track you have this whole musical breakdown that happens
i guess it was started by these guys man i mean talk about revolutionary um 60 years from now
to think that your ideas will still be used by people is is incredible um what else i guess
the the musicality again fit the idea of being um inspired by lsd you have the leery quotes
um yeah very mentally stimulating song now in terms of the cons one one thing i try and always
do is be honest on this channel uh what i'll be honest about is that in terms of the music i've
heard on this on this uh on this channel the rock music i've heard this isn't the style that speaks
to me the most um i think part of that is the fact that they were trying to be experimental
this was supposed to be very different challenging the sounds of the time um i like things that are
maybe more straightforward and heavy hitting and the beetles don't always fit that i know
some people have told me to check out things like health to skelter i certainly like blackbird a lot
but this isn't a song i see myself repeating and listening to while i um you know hoover around the
house or if you will there's something you've got to sit down and really really take in and absorb
um but you know that has its own sort of positives in itself you know the fact that music can force
you down force you to sit down and really take note is it's pretty inspiring and cool
um yeah i guess i guess that would be my sort of major thoughts on the band i think if i were
to try another song i would like to choose something that is perhaps more um i don't
know easier on the ears if you will something more straightforward with more with more um
blues inspired stuff if anyone has a suggestion for that
but all in all i think this is a very interesting song so i'll give it a thumbs up