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The movie Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados (Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed) (2013) centers around a Beatles-obsessed English teacher's quest to meet John Lennon. The movie itself is named after a line in the song.

In the movie, the English teacher Antonio makes a recording of John Lennon playing Strawberry Fields Forever to him. Antonio gifts the recording to the boy Juanjo, who then plays it on the car on the way back to Madrid. However and significantly, except for this one instance, not a single Beatles song is played in the entire movie.

As far as I can tell, this recording seems authentic (YouTube upload of the clip, but with the video altered). I might be mistaken though and it might just be someone else they got to sing it.

My question is: What is the source of this recording? (Album/demo tape/etc.)

According to the Google-translated description of the YouTube clip I linked to:

In fact it is Neil Harrison of the Beatles Bootleg who sings and not - if you can believe it - John Lennon. They recorded this version especially for the film to give it a more personal touch since there is no acoustic version of 'Strawberry Fields' that sounds so clear.

But according to a Montreal Gazette movie review:

Near the end of the film, we hear an early acoustic version of the song, in an incredibly moving moment.

To the down-voter and close-voter: I don't think this question is off-topic because this particular recording is a key piece or even climax of the movie. Similar questions on this site that haven't been closed: What is the theme music of Breaking Bad?, The Morning Report song in The Lion King, What was the song in Westworld S2E5?.

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  • Judging by the quality and style of the early Beatles demos of Strawberry Fields, it is very probably a cover (I imagine the work taken to extract and remaster the vocal track of an unknown authentic authentic recording and overlay a clean guitar track would be beyond the budget of the film). Here is a recording of the Bootleg Beatles performing Strawberry Fields when Neil Harrison was still a member of the group (pre 2011) for comparison. Commented Jun 16, 2018 at 11:00
  • @ukemi: I don't know if it's necessarily a cover. Searching a bit more, I find it sounds very similar to for example Anthology Vol. II > CD2 > Track 01 Strawberry Fields Forever (Demo Sequence). And there are a bunch more other uploads (demos, home recordings) on YouTube that sound similar. So it's not inconceivable that this was one of those demos but perhaps cleaned up a little. Commented Jun 16, 2018 at 12:52

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As the comment from @Ava suggests, this is a cover version of "Strawberry Fields Forever", sung by Neil Morrison of The Bootleg Beatles, a Beatles tribute band. It sounds very, very similar to "Take 1" of "Strawberry Fields Forever", which you can listen to here:

"Take 1" features on the "Anthology 2" album, as do numerous other demo versions. At this point in the original recording process, John is still not yet sure of the final lyrics, and you can hear it in his vocalisation. Interestingly, given the title of the film, this is the only version of the song that begins with the words, "Living is easy with eyes closed".

Those demo versions and first takes are quite famous, but they all lack the audio quality that would be expected for a modern-day soundtrack like the one for this movie. And, if it were really John singing, this version would be substantially more famous (specifically because of its audio quality and the tonal consistency of the singer). As it is, it doesn't appear to exist outside this film. The film's marketing materials would also clearly advertise the fact that the soundtrack includes genuine Beatles renditions, but this is not mentioned anywhere in any official advertising material.

In addition, the most widely-known version of "Strawberry Fields Forever" that was released as a double A side to "Penny Lane" and later appeared on the "Magical Mystery Tour" album is already a musically contentious song: that version was made by connecting two separate takes that were accidentally recorded in different keys. Says the Wikipedia entry for the song:

"Among musicologists, Walter Everett describes it as "midway between" A and B♭ over the opening minute and subsequently "closer to B♭", while Dominic Pedler says that some consider it to be closer to A major."

There is no way that such a clean, original version of this song could exist without it being widely known. It is definitely a cover version, as OP and @Ava states, by Neil Morrison.

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