Strawberry Field [english]

Some time ago, I was lucky enough to take a quick break to Liverpool with my father, a staunch fan of the Beatles. I will start my story with a place which is emblematic in the history of the ‘Fab Four’ and especially for John Lennon: Strawberry Fields.

With the 1950s around the corner, John was a boy who was well used to bad times. His real parents practically never existed, which made him the target of questions at school which were hardly pleasant for a boy of his age. He never knew what to answer. He was brought up by his Aunt Mimi in Woolton, a city suburb, among crosswords, harmonicas and Elvis Presley records.

A few yards from Aunt Mimi’s house, there was an Orphanage, known as Strawberry Field, where John used to go every year for the summer fair. There, surrounded by orphans, there were no awkward questions and that gave John the excuse to spend all his time there, where he was just another boy. The wooded area behind the Orphanage, which John christened with the plural, ‘Strawberry Fields’, was where he chose to escape with his friends to play. It was there, they say, he drew the inspiration to be a musician.

The name of the house became known throughout the world in 1967 with the launch of the single ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, written by John himself. He composed the song during a period of change and uncertainty in his life. His marriage to Cynthia Powell was coming to an end and he himself recognised that he was taking a large amount of LSD at the time. On a curious note, he began composing the song in Almeria in 1966 during the filming of ‘How I Won the War’. The song, a true Beatles anthem, reflects nostalgia for those first years spent by both Lennon and McCartney in Liverpool.

One of the lines of the song says “Living is easy with eyes closed”, a line which was later used as the title for a David Trueba film [2013] which tells the true story of the English teacher, Juan Carrión Gañán, who travelled to Almeria to meet Lennon while he was staying there for the filming.

Standing there, at the orphanage gates, next to the poster, in the rain, with the song playing in the taxi behind me, is something I’ll never forget.