“Strawberries Mean Love”

“Strawberries Mean Love” is the fourth song on Strawberry Alarm Clock’s 1967 debut LP Incense And Peppermints. It’s the second track to feature a more placid and conventional pop sound, the first having been “Birds In My Tree”, and follows the chaos of the scrambled “Lose To Live”.

“Strawberries Mean Love” is also one of the more genuinely psychedelic tracks on the album (second only perhaps to the excellent “Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow”). It’s led by distorted lead guitars, dense and droning in the classic Strawberry Alarm Clock way.

The lyrics sport a world-weariness borrowed from Bob Dylan (if not actually earned by the young band members) and find them sneering at naivety – just like “Like A Rolling Stone”:

“Life goes nowhere
Why are you there?
You cannot hide there
What will you find there?”

But then the answer comes from the multi-tracked voices in their lovely SAC harmony: “You will find strawberries’ love there.” Ah, I see. The idea behind the song seems to be an exercise in self-promotion, or (perhaps more charitably) building up a mythology around the band and its name.

Instrumentally, “Strawberries Mean Love” is an excellent demonstration of the band’s innovative lead guitar sound courtesy of Ed King. The song has a slow pace, and the lead guitar lines here match it. King is ultra-melodic, and his buzzing, sleepy drone gives the song virtually all of its atmosphere. The vocalists are backed up by soft, harmonic “oohs” by other band members, and the overall performance is dense and blissful.

This song lent its name to a later compilation album, Strawberries Mean Love.

“Strawberries Mean Love” appears on…

Incense And Peppermints (1967)
Incense & Peppermints (1990)
Strawberries Mean Love (1992)
The Strawberry Alarm Clock Anthology (1993)

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