The World - Special Dates - Dec 8

December 8

The Murder: On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was murdered when he was about to enter his building. There is a memorial to Lennon in Central Park called "Strawberry Fields." It is located across from The Dakota building in New York City where Lennon lived.



The Memorial: Strawberry Fields
Address: W. Park Dr. and W. 72nd St., Central Park, New York City, NY, The USA

This memorial to John Lennon, who penned the classic 1967 song "Strawberry Fields Forever," is sometimes called the "international garden of peace." Its curving paths, shrubs, trees, and flower beds donated by many countries create a deliberately informal landscape reminiscent of the English parks of Lennon's homeland. Every year on December 8, Beatles fans mark the anniversary of Lennon's death by gathering around the star-shape, black-and-white imagine mosaic set into the pavement. Lennon's 1980 murder took place across the street at the Dakota apartment building, where he lived. Subway: B, C to 72nd St. (Fodor's Travel Guide)

The Song: Strawberry Fields Forever
in Magical Mystery Tour, 1967 - by Lennon/McCartney

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn't matter much to me.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.

No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right, that is I think it's not too bad.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Always, no sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think I know I mean a 'Yes' but it's all wrong, that is I think I disagree.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Song facts: Lennon wrote this song while he was in Spain working on a movie called How I Won The War. Strawberry Field was a Salvation Army home in Liverpool where John Lennon used to go to visit the orphan children who lived there.

Lennon: Strawberry Fields is a real place. After I stopped living at Penny Lane, I moved in with my auntie who lived in the suburbs in a nice semidetached place with a small garden and doctors and lawyers and that ilk living around... not the poor slummy kind of image that was projected in all the Beatles stories. In the class system, it was about half a class higher than Paul, George and Ringo, who lived in government-subsidized housing. We owned our house and had a garden. They didn't have anything like that. 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 would go there and hang out and sell lemonade bottles for a penny. 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.

John's aunt Mimi did not like John going to Strawberry Fields, because she thought they would lead John astray. John liked going there because having lost his father and later his mother he felt a kinship to the lads. When John and his aunt would argue about his going he would often reply "What are they going to do, hang me?" Thus the line "nothing to get hung about."

More on Lennon, on our forums A documentary on him