In 1967, The Beatles released what is arguably one of their greatest songs, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.
The track was John Lennon’s ode to an area where he grew up and had fond memories of.
He managed to capture those memories on the track and outline them over a wonderful-sounding instrumental that is widely celebrated by Beatles fans worldwide.
“Strawberry Fields is a real place,” said John Lennon when discussing the track, “A house near a boys’ reformatory where I used to go to garden parties as a kid with my friends Nigel and Pete we would go there and hang out and sell lemonade bottles for a penny.
We always had fun at Strawberry Fields. So that’s where I got the name. But I used it as an image. Strawberry Fields forever.”
The B-side to ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ was the equally iconic Beatles track, ‘Penny Lane’.
After hearing that John Lennon had written a song which was inspired by somewhere he grew up and had fond memories of, McCartney decided that he would do the same.
Only moments later, ‘Penny Lane’ was created. Penny Lane is actually a reference to a bus shelter which used to be in the middle of a roundabout in Liverpool.
It’s not there anymore, but it was where a number of The Beatles used to go when they were kids to hang out.
They would also get on the bus and ride to different areas of Liverpool, so Penny Lane became a mini gateway to adventure for the young Beatles. Just with this A-side and B-side alone, you begin to understand the creative dynamic that existed between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The two had a rivalry, whether they said it or not, and it meant that when one of them wrote a great song, it encouraged the other person to write a great song.
This is most visible on the ‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘Penny Lane’ example, as those tracks basically reflect Paul McCartney hearing John Lennon’s blast of nostalgia and wanting to create his own.
There’s no doubt that each member of The Beatles has plenty of regrets about what they did in the band; however, one of John Lennon’s biggest came from this rivalry that he had with McCartney.
He admitted that he had one huge regret about the Beatles song ‘All My Loving’, namely the fact that he didn’t write it.
“’All My Loving’ is Paul, I regret to say,” admitted Lennon, “Because it’s a damn fine piece of work.
But I play a pretty mean guitar in the back.” There are a lot of people who agree with McCartney, saying that it’s an example of one of his most complex pieces of songwriting.
The reason for this could be because the track really saw Paul McCartney step outside of his comfort zone.
Usually, he would start songs with a melody in mind and build around that. ‘All My Loving’ is one of the only Beatles tracks where he changed his approach, and the result is something truly beautiful.
“It was the first song [where] I’d ever written the words first,” he said, “I never wrote the words first, it was always some kind of accompaniment. I’ve hardly ever done it since either.”
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