In the first of our new series in which Merseyside's leading musicians talk about their favourite song sprinkled with salt from the Mersey, we have Stuart Irwin from the Great Northwestern Hoboes on Strawberry Fields Forever...
"It's hard to say where and when I first heard this song, I was born 15 years after it was released, and like a lot of the Beatles songs its just always seemed to be there...like you brought it with you, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know it.
But my mum had the original 7”, with worn out grooves and battered edges, and with her name scratched in the centre of the disc, because at the time, it was just the latest pop single, incredible as it may seem today.
I think it stands as one of the greatest expressions in pop, an incredible soundscape which manages to convey that fantasy of childhood innocence and nostalgia which is always swimming in your mind but you can never quite put a finger on.
How they articulated it is incredible, and its backed up with the emotion as well, unlike a lot of the Psychedelic junk that came afterwards. Its melancholic and vulnerable, and it has a great pastoral Englishness to it that everyone can relate to, and that’s probably why it hits so hard. Lennon described it as ‘psychoanalysis set to music’.
Its got a real haunting quality as well, and a dense mass of sound that is almost impossible to recreate now. I think the technical limitations of the era compared to now were one of the reasons they had to push their imaginations to the limit, instead of just being able to push buttons on a computer keyboard.
It's just a great piece of work that needs listening to over and over, and it does seem that the old saying is true, especially with a lot of what is going on in the city at the moment, that the most neglected part of the Beatles is still their actual music itself."
The Great Northwestern Hoboes begin a national tour on May 17. For details see www.myspace.com/greatnorthwesternhoboes.