Synopsis

The Beatles wander through a wintry field in a deliberately dreamlike performance film rather than a conventional lip-sync clip. Around a dead oak tree stands a battered upright piano transformed into a strange piano-harp sculpture, with strings running into the branches. The band members appear and disappear through jump cuts, dissolves, reverse motion, close-ups, and sudden shifts between daylight and darkness. They climb, play, stare into the camera, and eventually splash paint over the improvised instrument, matching the song's introspective and surreal mood.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was shot on January 30 and 31, 1967, at Knole Park near Sevenoaks, Kent. The same location was also used for parts of the "Penny Lane" promotional film.

• The unusual tree-and-piano construction was designed to make the instrument look like a hybrid of a piano and a harp. The wires attached to the tree reportedly broke in the wind during filming and had to be reattached.

• The production deliberately avoided showing the Beatles simply performing the song. Its reverse motion, stop-motion touches, superimpositions, jump cuts, and day-to-night transitions helped establish the idea of the promotional film as an artistic work in its own right.

• The clip was made partly because television appearances increasingly required the Beatles to mime, while the Musicians' Union opposed that practice. A filmed performance allowed the band to promote the single without appearing live on every program.

• "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were released as a double A-side on February 17, 1967. Both songs had initially been considered for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

• During the Knole Park shoot, John Lennon visited a shop in nearby Sevenoaks and bought an antique circus poster. It later inspired the Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"

• The film was shown in full on the BBC's "Top of the Pops" on February 15, 1967, and is now widely regarded as one of the key early examples of the modern music video.