The Beatles, "Strawberry Fields Forever"

For me, it's an article of faith that 1967 was the greatest year of the rock era, and the Beatles (yay!) are a primary reason for that - and I'm not referring to Sgt. Pepper. "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever" is, I declare, the greatest double-sided single in rock history. But while the Pet Sounds-ish "Penny Lane" is at the end of the day my favorite Beatles song (not to mention my favorite #1 hit), it's "Strawberry Fields Forever" that's on my mind this week.

A recent bout with love (kind of like a bout with dysentery, but without the helpful weight loss) has reminded me in deep ways of SFF's sense of alienation. John Lennon didn't always match his most poetic lyrics up with his most memorable melodies, but here he remarkably synthesizes those two sides of himself, in a tune about someone who, in today's operative language, just isn't on the same page with those around him. He's defiant in his unwillingness to fake it: it's hard to be alone, but even harder to be someone else. So for him, "it's not too bad" ... nevertheless, it's a rare person who can say, "No one, I think, is in my tree," and not be mournful of that fact. John pulls it off here, which makes me admire him all the more as I observe from my own solitary branch.

Which, I've been thinking, almost makes "Strawberry Fields Forever" a response record to "Eleanor Rigby": this, John tells Paul, is where the lonely people come from. If not perhaps where they belong.