The song was influential on psychedelic rock and, in Chris Ingham's description, it established "the standard and style for the entire psychedelic pop movement that would follow". Ian MacDonald recognises the track as having "extended the range of studio techniques developed on "Revolver", opening up possibilities for pop which, given sufficient invention, could result in unprecedented sound images". He views it as having launched both the "English pop-pastoral mood" typified by bands such as Pink Floyd, Family, Traffic and Fairport Convention, and English psychedelia's LSD-inspired preoccupation with "nostalgia for the innocent vision of a child". Among other music historians, Simon Philo describes much of Pink Floyd's first album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (1967), as being in the style of the "patented British psychedelia" introduced by "Strawberry Fields Forever". David Howard says the production was a "direct touchstone" for Pink Floyd, the Move, the Smoke and other bands in London's upcoming psychedelic scene.