It’s a historical occasion, but there’s a specific moment in Beatles ’64 showing that John Lennon might have been ahead of the curve already. It recontextualizes the writing of one of his classic Beatles songs, as well as what the band was all about in its early days. Let me take you down, ’cause we’re going to Strawberry Fields.
February 9, 1964, went down in history as one of the most important cultural moments in contemporary music, with the Beatles performing on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time. It was a landmark for multiple reasons, but Beatles ’64 shows how things happened from behind the scenes, including the boys hanging out and killing time in a hotel room before the actual performance. Some of them were giving interviews on the telephone, like George Harrison, and others were up to their usual shenanigans, and it seems like that’s the case with John Lennon, too, until…
Around the 53-minute mark in Beatles ’64, we get a shot of John playing a melodica, which is just like a harmonica, but played vertically with a keyboard. He plays some random notes at first, until three of them fall into place as the introduction to “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Instead of letting them ring, he plays them repeatedly, but for their exact length in the song, making for an instantly recognizable moment for any Beatlemaniac worth their vinyl records. Then, the boys get ready and leave for the studio.
While this particular moment may not seem important (so what if he played those notes, right?), it does help us contextualize John’s mindset at that time, as well as provide a unique window into the Beatles’ writing process. At that time, those might have been “random” notes, but they would later flourish into one of John’s greatest compositions. It also recontextualizes the very writing of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which was previously believed to have been written two years later.
‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ Is Believed To Have Been Written in 1966
In 1964, Beatlemania got to an all-time high with the Beatles’ visit to the USA. Now, with over sixty years of historical hindsight, it’s generally believed that they were still in their “bubblegum” period, as their producer George Martin usually put it, writing only simple songs about young love, and that a transition period comes after, finally leading up to their psychedelic phase in 1967. It’s just three years, but they go through a lot. This moment in Beatles ’64 blurs the lines between these three periods in the band’s history, especially for John.
It’s generally believed that John would write “Strawberry Fields Forever” only between September and October 1968, when he was in Spain for the filming of Richard Lester‘s How I Won the War. That break from the band helped him put things into perspective after everything they’d been through in previous years, including all the controversy that led them to quit live performances in August 1966. With all that going on, “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a reasonable ode to nostalgia for John, a callback to a simpler time as a child in Liverpool. Ultimately, though, it helped him reinvent himself, even coming up with his iconic round glasses that he would wear for the rest of his life.
But, while the bulk of the song’s writing is indeed documented to have taken place in Spain, Beatles ’64 shows that John already had the introductory chords in mind, and probably came up with them while playing around in seemingly unpretentious moments. Another documentary, Peter Jackson‘s The Beatles: Get Back, shows Paul McCartney composing “Get Back” by similarly playing with the notes, almost as if the song is “willing” itself into existence. This also shows how similarly John and Paul worked, a testament to why their songwriting partnership was so successful.
‘Beatles ‘64’ Shows That the Band’s Genius Was Already Present Early On
Beatles ’64 takes place at a moment in the band’s history before they came to be considered great artists and songwriters. Their greatest hits at the time did have a good degree of complexity, like Paul’s baseline in “I Saw Her Standing There,” for example, but, compared to the songs they started releasing in 1966, they were rather primary in musical terms. With so much going on between releasing a new record every year, playing record-breaking concerts around the world, starring in their own movies as a band, and getting involved in controversies such as the “bigger than Jesus” remarks, there wasn’t much room for artistic growth.
What John playing the intro to “Strawberry Fields Forever” in Beatles ’64 shows us, then, is that their genius had been there from the start, and just needed some room to grow. 1966 was a turning point in the Beatles’ career, marking their transition from that primary sound into a more elaborate one with albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver. That was only possible because they allowed themselves to prioritize their art by looking inward, writing songs about who they were and how they saw the world. This would also culminate in them becoming better musicians, leading into their psychedelic years in 1967 and 1968. Given how everything happened so fast with the Beatles, it’s not that crazy to think that all of this might have started with John playing some seemingly random notes before the band’s Ed Sullivan performance.
Beatles ’64 is available to stream on Disney+.
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