JOHN 1968: 'Strawberry Fields was a place near us that happened to be a Salvation Army home.
But Strawberry Fields – I mean, I have visions of Strawberry Fields.
And there was Penny Lane, and the Cast Iron Shore, which I've just got in some song now, and they were just good names – just groovy names.
Just good sounding.
Because Strawberry Fields is anywhere you want to go.'
PAUL 1974: 'That wasn't 'I buried Paul' at all – that was John saying 'Cranberry sauce.' It was the end of Strawberry Fields.
Thatīs Johnīs humor.
John would say something totally out of sync, like cranberry sauce.
If you donīt realize that Johnīs apt to say cranberry sauce when he feels like it, then you start to hear a funny little word there, and you think, 'Aha!''
JOHN 1980: 'Strawberry Fields is a real place.
After I stopped living at Penny Lane, I moved in with my auntie who lived in the suburbs… not the poor slummy kind of image that was projected in all the Beatles stories.
Near that home was Strawberry Fields, a house near a boys' reformatory where I used to go to garden parties as a kid with my friends Nigel and Pete.
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.
'Living is easy with eyes closed.
Misunderstanding all you see.' It still goes, doesn't it? Aren't I saying exactly the same thing now? The awareness apparently trying to be expressed is – let's say in one way I was always hip.
I was hip in kindergarten.
I was different from the others.
I was different all my life.
The second verse goes, 'No one I think is in my tree.' Well, I was too shy and self-doubting.
Nobody seems to be as hip as me is what I was saying.
Therefore, I must be crazy or a genius – 'I mean it must be high or low,' the next line.
There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things other people didn't see.
I thought I was crazy or an egomaniac for claiming to see things other people didn't see.
I always was so psychic or intuitive or poetic or whatever you want to call it, that I was always seeing things in a hallucinatory way.
Surrealism had a great effect on me, because then I realized that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity; that if it was insane, I belong in an exclusive club that sees the world in those terms.
Surrealism to me is reality.
Psychic vision to me is reality.
Even as a child.
When I looked at myself in the mirror or when I was 12, 13, I used to literally trance out into alpha.
I didn't know what it was called then.
I found out years later there is a name for those conditions.
But I would find myself seeing hallucinatory images of my face changing and becoming cosmic and complete.
It caused me to always be a rebel.
This thing gave me a chip on the shoulder; but, on the other hand, I wanted to be loved and accepted.
Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic musician.
But I cannot be what I am not.'