60 years ago John Lennon composed the germ of «Strawberry Fields Forever» in Almería

In September 1966, John Lennon arrived in Almería to shoot a film that had nothing to do with the Beatles. When he left, at the beginning of November, he took with him the first recorded version of a song that would be released in February 1967: «Strawberry Fields Forever». It is 60 years since that stay. The film was «How I Won the War», a comedy by Richard Lester. Lennon played soldier Gripweed, the only non-musical role of his career. During that shoot he began wearing the round glasses he would use for the rest of his life, according to the English Wikipedia. Filming began in West Germany and continued in the province of Almería. According to The Beatles Bible, a website that documents the group's history day by day, the outdoor work in Spain started on Monday, September 19, 1966 and ended on Sunday, November 6. That same website places Lennon's return to London in one entry on the 6th and in another on the 7th, by plane from Madrid. Lennon later spoke of six weeks in Almería; The Beatles Bible, of seven. He got up at six in the morning and his black Rolls-Royce took him to the shoot, according to the same website.

First he stayed in a small apartment facing the sea. Later he moved to Santa Isabel, a villa on the outskirts of the city, with his wife, Cynthia; Neil Aspinall, a Beatles associate, and the actor Michael Crawford and his family, according to The Beatles Bible. Eldiario.es also mentions Ringo Starr. That villa is the Cortijo Romero, in the Villablanca neighbourhood, which today houses the Casa del Cine, the municipal museum about films shot in the province. According to eldiario.es, the association Lennon Forever Almería, promoted by the journalist Javier Adolfo Iglesias, managed to get the building, which was in ruins, restored.

Lennon told the story in 1980 in an interview with the journalist David Sheff: it took him six weeks to write the song and he worked on it throughout the shoot. He also said he kept an original tape. According to the English Wikipedia, which summarises the studies on the recording, the first demo was made in Almería and had a single verse and no chorus. There Lennon wrote the melody and part of a chorus that served as a bridge and that did not yet name Strawberry Fields. Back in England, in November, he added another verse and the reference to Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army children's home in Woolton, in Liverpool, in whose garden he played as a child. Some see in the iron gate and the vegetation of Santa Isabel a memory of that garden. It is an interpretation reported by the English Wikipedia, not something Lennon said. In Almería another version circulates that links the title to the strawberry fields of the area; eldiario.es mentions it, but the studies on the song point to the place in Liverpool. The writer Steve Turner also believes it likely that Lennon took ideas from «Report to Greco», by Nikos Kazantzakis, which he was reading in Almería. The Beatles began recording the song on November 24, 1966 at the EMI studios in London, today's Abbey Road. It came out in February 1967 on a single with «Penny Lane».

Almería has turned that autumn into part of its memory. In plaza Flores there is a statue of Lennon with a guitar, by José María Jurado and Carmen Mudarra, which was previously on avenida Federico García Lorca. Cinema also returned to the story. David Trueba told in «Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados» the fictional journey of a teacher from Cartagena who goes to Almería to meet Lennon. According to eldiario.es, he was inspired by Juan Carrión, a teacher who taught English with Beatles songs. The film won the Goya for best film.