strawberry fields

In the 1960's to get "hung up" about something or "hung" was to get up set about it. What Lennon is saying is do not get upset because "nothing is real" in strawberry fields/

Thats very near to what it meant Aquiunk, but what was the basis for Lennons line in this song? Where did it come from?

Major Clue: his aunt Mimi.

Clue: Strawberry fields foster home. Aunt Mimi didn't want John to visit that place.

I'm clueless (but not hung up)

Interesting, kev. During visits to Liverpool, I've been to Penny Lane, but never made it to Strawberry Fields. There's another street there, Lark Lane, which was quite near where I was staying. It had all the sorts of places the lyrics describe. Plus a great pub!

suicide???? in the foster home system? a friend perhaps?

Strawberry Fields
The following info was found at:
louisville.edu/~amgodf01/strawberryfields.html


Strawberry Field was a Salvation Army sponsored children's home close to John Lennon's child hood house in Liverpool. There he had playmates whom he used to visit daily. While the obvious meaning of the song is somewhat like a ballad to these sweet memories, the truth behind Lennon writing the song in not as innocent. The song is "a mirror only to its author's almost perpetual LSD trip. Yet his feelings for imagery remained strong enough to shine through the scrawl of the drug across his mind" (Phillip Norman) and into ours. Indeed these memories, when closely looked at, seem so true to Lennon's drug use that prompted him to write this song. The song talks about going down, maybe slouching in to a drug induced stupor, where there is nothing to get hung about. The words and feeling are closely related to the reckless and indecisive emotions that people who frequently use drugs, one moment at the top of the world and the other not even caring to live. The music of Strawberry Fields is actually a combination of two different compositions of the song. One was a instrumental composition, and the other was a more psychedelic composition. The Bealtes manager heard both versions and liked them both. Lennon, who was the mastermind behind this song, decided that he also wanted a combination of the two songs. After hours and days of tiring to mix and synchronize the two songs into one, the right key and pitch was found, and the song was master recorded into the song that we know today.

I had always thought Strawberry Fields was an insane asylum.

Colorbook, your explanation is beautiful, and I cannot fault your impeccable logic, However the truth behind the question is somewhat simpler.

As a boy, John used to hang around with the lads from "strawberry fields" because he could "identify" with them, the reason being that he felt that he was in the same position that they were, his father was out of the picture, his mother was there but he lived with his aunt Mimi, he felt sympathy for kids who had no family.

Aunt Mimi felt that the boys from this place may be a bad influence and constantly "badgered" john not to go there.

One day in anger, he said, for christs sake aunt Mimi, they aren't going to bloody hang me.

Years later when he wrote strawberry fields he incorporated this outburts into the song.

Thanks Kev. Until today I never knew the true meaning of this song.

LOL! There was damn fine acid called strawberry fields, too - but its name may have been based on the song - rather than the song being a double entendre, of sorts.