'Cause I'm Going to Strawberry Fields

The single-biggest moment of The Beatles Anthology was hearing John Lennon's first demo of Strawberry Fields Forever; in 1996 it was a miracle anytime you'd find a tape of ANY band's demos, much less The Beatles (or anyone from that time period). I can still remember where I was sitting in my bedroom at 402 Christman Drive in Oxford, Mississippi, listening to Lennon struggle to put together the song for the first time, completely astonished such a recording existed & I was listening to it - astonishing both in the song's emergence as well as revealing how human Lennon was in the moment, just a guy trying to get through to what he's hearing in his head. It was thrilling then, it's thrilling today, and it's thrilling to read about the moment he played the song for the rest of The Beatles & George Martin for the first time, as detailed by Geoff Emerick in Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles:

John was standing directly in front of George Martin, playing an acoustic guitar and singing softly. Because he wasn't close to any of the microphones we had arranged around the room, I had to push the faders up quite high to hear him.

From the very first note, it was obvious that this new Lennon song was a masterpiece. He had created a gentle, almost mystical tribute to some mysterious place, a place he called "Strawberry Fields" had no idea what the lyric was about, but the words were compelling, like abstract poetry, and there was something magical in the spooky, detached timbre of John's voice.

When he finished, there was a moment of stunned silence, broken by Paul, who in a quiet, respectful tone said simply, "That is absolutely brilliant." Most of the time when Lennon played one of his songs through for the first time on acoustic guitar, we'd all think, Wow, that's great, but this song was clearly something special.

"I've brought a demo tape of the song with me, too," John said, offering to play it, but everyone agreed there was no need-they wanted to get straight into recording. The energy in the room was staggering: it was almost as if the band's creative energies had been bottled up for too long.

"That is absolutely brilliant".

The demo Lennon tells them about is the one from The Anthology I listened to over & over for hours back in 1996 in Oxford. Incredible.