The Beatles song John Lennon compared to Buddhist philosophy
By 1967, The Beatles were deep into drugs and philosophy. Just before the band took off to a meditation retreat in India in 1968, their Magical Mystery Tour album planted the trippy seeds. One song in particular got John Lennon thinking deeply.
The late ‘60s album was written to soundtrack a film of the same title. Wanting to continue on the psychedelic themes they explored on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the group created a second album to spiral deeper into the world of LSD and meditation.
On the surface, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ has a very simple source of inspiration. Recalling childhood memories spent playing in the garden at Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army children’s home in Liverpool, the song is deeply connected to the band’s hometown.
But to John Lennon, the song had a far deeper meaning than nostalgia. He connected the track to Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and how its ideas influenced his daily life.
During a 1980 interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon was asked about the famous line, “nothing is real”. Getting profound, the musician replied, “In a way, no thing is real, if you break the word down.”
“As the Hindus or Buddhists say, it’s an illusion,” he said. “It’s Rashomon. We all see it, but the agreed-upon illusion is what we live in. And the hardest thing is facing yourself.”
Rashomon is a famous 1950 film by director Akira Kurosawa that considers different perspectives on a single crime and bystander guilt. This connected to Lennon’s more expansive worldview, “I used to think that the world was doing it to me and the world owed me something,” he said. “I’ve found out for me personally — not for the whole world — that I am responsible for me, as well as for them.”
“I am part of them. There’s no separation: We’re all one, so in that respect I look at it all and think, ‘Ah, I have to deal with me again in that way. What is real? What is the illusion I’m living or not living?’ And I have to deal with it every day,” he added.
Believing that nothing is real except for the self, the here and the now, the simple song ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ suddenly feels much deeper.
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