The Power of the Arts in the Strawberry Fields Forever Cover by La Santa Cecilia
Zeina Dghaim
In this song analysis assignment, I shall present an analysis based on three main propositional values for the lyrical song Strawberry Fields by John Lennon, visual cover by La Santa Cecilia band. First propositional value presents Strawberry Fields as awareness; second propositional value presents Strawberry Fields as nourishment; and third propositional value presents Strawberry Fields as illuminating arts.
Introduction
The members of La Santa Cecilia are based in Los Angeles, in California. They are Mexican American and play a blend of music stemming from cumbia, to bossa nova to boleros. Their cover song, Strawberry Field Forever, is a tribute to Mexican migrant workers and the hard work they exude in the fields to nourish others and provide a decent life for their families. The origin of the song, however, comes from distant lands - perhaps like-minded visions through osmosis - a song written by John Lennon originally meant to pay tribute to Lennon’s past in Liverpool. Strawberry Fields was the name of a Salvation Army children’s home, an orphanage in the 70s near Lennon’s home in Woolton where he grew up as a child. Lennon shares his most sentimental and nostalgic moments of this place, which has an ‘agridulce’ value in the lyrical composition in that it provokes fond memories for people like Lennon and simpler childhood times playing in the garden, yet, it is also discombobulated and cryptic, since it is also the home of Salvation Army Children, kids that had lesser opportunities in the world, without families, and those in need of special assistance.
La Santa Cecilia managed to capture this double entendre through their video animation, in what we consider a visual language that evokes both the bitter and the sweet, much like Lennon’s intention in the song that we shall briefly discuss later. La Santa Cecilia managed to capture this versatile essence quite effectively through the visual narrative of the video depicting migrant workers picking strawberries, much like the garden that Lennon depicted where he both picked and planted his dreams.
Awareness
This song has definitely shown the interconnectedness of the world that we live in, and the suffering, tenacity, resilience, and hard work required to earn a living, to imagine a bright future, or to keep just the pendulum of hope ticking in midst of torment and perpetual loss of hope. It has accomplished this task through the relationship between the orphaned kids seeking a better life in the garden in Liverpool, juxtaposed the hardworking migrant workers seeking a better life in the garden or field of strawberries. In this realm of awareness, these strawberry fields become a significant source of aspiration for the workers, in addition to showcasing that they are a part of our natural world, nature and its role in providing for us, yet, the question remains: who is the one toiling and sweating in hot summer suns?
In light of this reflective question, and in the name of all that comes from our natural world, let us not forget the actual title of the song, Strawberry fields, which is also a slang term for LSD, as some believe Lennon was a drug user and he himself admitted to taking LSD as a form of influence in his song writing – whether his use of LSD is true or not remains debatable and not he focus of this analysis. However, it is important to bring forth terms and definitions associated with Strawberry Fields and to reiterate the importance that whether this song reverberates his yearning for simpler times, nostalgia for playing in the garden of the orphanage, or coming down from high acid trips (or all of the above), does not erase the fact that what he created has influenced others, and such fluidity provoked La Santa Cecilia in demonstrating the struggles of Mexican workers through this symbolic visual treatment. “No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low, […] But you know I know when it's a dream, […] All wrong, that is I think I disagree, let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields” (John Lennon). His awareness of whatever may be real or not reinforces the realization that disillusions and illusions are part of the reality that he is experiencing, perhaps much like the escape from injustice that people feel at times, even if it is in a form of hope or a dream.
Strawberry Fields Forever, thus, is a melody that does in fact last forever in its fervor and meaning, bridging gaps awareness, nourishment, art in many forms, nostalgia, hard work, and the reality of our diverse life experiences where “living is easy with eyes closed” (Lennon) because we can misunderstand all that we can see (Lennon). These are representations of Lennon’s own disillusions with life, how he used to escape his troubles by going to play in the garden of the Salvation Army where orphans lived, alluding to his awareness that where he in-fact escapes is an actual refuge for orphaned children. And where he seeks to contemplate his life and troubles or journey for simpler times is also a place of refuge for him – the orphan within him, perhaps. In this case, the ‘field’ is impregnated with compassion and benevolence as a place for ‘many’ seeking a place to escape.
Nourishment
The narrative of Strawberry Fields is timeless in that we can, for example, replace the strawberries with tomatoes, much like the garden in Liverpool was replaced by a beautiful animated rendition of migrant workers: the arithmetic element remains, only the geographical location changes. La Santa Cecilia immediately transport us to Leamington, Ontario, not too far away from London, Ontario, whereby the largest population of Mexican migrant workers are summoned to Canada every summer to pick tomatoes for the Heinz factory.
Lennon’s inspiration, from whatever it stems from, opened doors for us to examine the lives of migrant workers on the field in the United States, much like Heinz’ Leamington workers, akin to those in La Santa Cecilia’s video sitting on the back of the pickup truck after a long and tiring day in the field (See appendix one). What these migrant workers are doing impacts our wellbeing as they are nourishing us and proving through their sweat and toils. Furthermore, in the case of the Mexican migrant workers at Heinz, Leamington experienced a boom in their economy, and “where Theresa’s Fashion once was is now Chica Linda […] Gino’s Restaurant and Wine Bar next door is now La Hacienda, a Mexican restaurant. Clubs offer salsa music and buckets of Corona and Caribbean vibe” (Sara Mojtehedzadeh, The Star, 2017). These workers, overworked and underpaid, still managed to create a ‘taste’ or ‘glimpse’ of home, perhaps to soften the blow of injustice – another example of how food, nature, music, and the arts can serve as soothers for our souls even in times of strife.
Marisol Hernandez, band vocalist in La Santa Cecilia, clearly expressed the seed that flourished into their beautiful visual rendition: "it's a way for us to acknowledge their work and for people just to remember where all our amazing fruit comes from, and it's so easy to grab at grocery stores, but it comes from somewhere else, and it's good to acknowledge the people behind the scenes, no?"
Illuminating Arts
Another depiction of the ‘not so sweet and palatable’ that migrants experience, is by Toronto artist Farrah Miranda’s art installation entitled the “Speaking Fruit”, to raise awareness about migrant farm workers in Canada. The art installation is made to look like a fruit stand and is intended to give you information about how migrant workers are treated and their days in the fields (See appendix two). Miranda managed to provide a glimpse of the harsh environments that migrants endured and transformed their sentiments on vegetable bags (See appendix three) so consumers can gain awareness, through the arts, about where their produce come from, and how. The parallelism between the art of La Santa Cecilia and Farrah Miranda is indicative of the underlying struggle attached to these natural surroundings and narratives of hard work on fields by Mexican migrants.
La Santa Cecilia’s visual rendition is a tribute itself that transformed us on this journey to experience an arduous day in the life of a migrant worker picking fruit in fields under the scorching hot sun. We see the strawberries reaching the store front in the video (see appendix four), as one example, and their contributions to the community. This is also present in Miranda’s art installation, only the produce has changed.
Conclusion
Whether it is the migrant workers in Leamington, Ontario picking tomatoes for the Heinz factory which is then Ketchup on our dinner tables, or strawberries that we often take for granted in the form of strawberry sundae sauce, without much knowledge of who picked them and what is the story behind these hardworking individual – whatever the natural product or the end product, let us not forget the sweat and tears that have contributed to our nourishment and awareness – this deserves acknowledgement and what a better medium than art to shed light and illuminate our intercultural life trials and human condition.
Appendices
References
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Bueckert, Kate. Migrant worker art installation shows fruit of their labour: Artists behind
Speaking Fruit want Canadians to ask questions about their food. CBC News, 29 Sep 2017. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/speaking-fruit-migrant-workers-ontario-art-nuit-blanche-1.4311959/. Accessed 18 Feb 2020.
Castellanos, Melissa. La Santa Cecilia 'Strawberry Fields Forever' Music Video Pays Tribute to Migrant Workers With Beatles Cover. Latin Post, 5 Aug. 2014, https://www.latinpost.com/articles/18578/20140805/la-santa-cecilia-strawberry-fields-forever-music-video-pays-tribute.htm/. Accessed 17 Feb 2020.
Lennon, John. Strawberry Fields Fovever. Genius Lyrics. The Beatles 1973. https://genius.com/The-beatles-strawberry-fields-forever-lyrics/. Accessed 15 February 2020.
Sara Mojtehedzadeh, Nicholas Keung, and Jim Rankin. Leamington is at the frontlines of the boom in migrant workers. Here’s how it’s changed. The Star, 9 Oct, 2017, https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/migrants/2017/10/09/leamington-is-at-the-frontlines-of-the-boom-in-migrant-workers-heres-how-its-changed.html/. Accessed 16 Feb 2020.
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