Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 13

The Lasting Popularity of “Strawberry Fields Forever’’
SFF’s lyrics also bridge
1. a confusingly ambivalent now —’’Always.. .no sometimes.. .1 think
I know I mean, er ‘Yes’ but...that is, I think...” (verse 3)—with an
idyllic then, when “there [was] nothing to get hung about”;
2. the “hard”ships of fame, of “be[ingj someone,” with the relative
“eas[e]” (verse 1) of anonymity;
3. the “real” (invoked in the chorus) with the “dream” (verse 3);
4. the “high” with the “low” (verse 2),
5. “always” with “sometimes” (verse 3),
6. to “think” with to “know” (verse 3),
7. “no” with “yes” (verse 3), and, by implication,
8. up with “down” (chorus),
9. right with “wrong” (verse 2),
10. good with “bad” (verse 2) and so on.
The lyrics enounce other binary oppositions, but I shall confine myself to noting
only one other: “All” is invoked three times in the song, “nothing” four.
Elsewhere I argued that the lasting