Psychedelic Rock 2: The Beatles

There are several John Lennon songs that really take you on a trip without ingesting a drug; one song is “Strawberry Fields Forever”. As a child, I was very attracted to this song for its surreal nature. I had first heard “Strawberry Fields” in 1978 after knowing the Beatles radio hits like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”, “She Loves You”, “Help” & “Yesterday” for some time and thinking of them as a band everyone liked but were boring to kids. That changed the day I heard the Beatles “psychedelic” period sequel to what was known as Mach 1 or “Tomorrow Never Knows”.

At the time in 1978 when I first heard “Strawberry Fields”, I was ten, more into Kiss and the hard rock we heard on the radio like James Gang, Heart, Boston, Bad Company and Thin Lizzy.  I heard “Strawberry Fields” off of very good equipment for 1978. I heard what sounded like a surreal almost cartoonish landscape of sound and detail that I had not heard before. The music to me seemed to become more three dimensional, drawn out, in-depth with pinpoint fidelity.

The drums fidelity and depth of the sound were improved to unbelievable proportions during a mad rush of technology in the mid-sixties due to the need for better more powerful live and recording equipment as was discovered by the Beatles, Stones and the rest of the Brits.

Most of the 1966 classic Beatles album “Revolver” was filled with references to mind-expanding and altering drugs. Yet the Beatles had become so well respected internationally not as rock & rollers but serious composers and musicians rivaling many of America’s great songwriters and even past European classical composers. They also had the master recording producer George Martin who was able to mask of the questionable lyrics and embed many sound effects in the mix.

Lennon’s dabbling in the Avant Gard was tolerated in 1966 when the psychedelic phase was new and fresh. With the Beatles ear and attention to detail on the psychedelic albums brought to me a profound depth of structure in, three-dimensional music.

All of the other wave nuances on sound became alive and more noticeable. Music seemed to take on qualities of color and light and have more aesthetic qualities like synesthesia.