Penny Lane

"Penny Lane"
Song
A-side	"Strawberry Fields Forever"

"Penny Lane" is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney, recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, and released in February 1967 (see 1967 in music) as one side of a double A-sided single, along with Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever". Beatles producer George Martin has stated he believes the pairing of these songs resulted in probably the greatest single ever released by the group. Both songs were later released on the US Magical Mystery Tour album in November 1967. The song features contrasting verse-chorus form and was credited "Lennon-McCartney", although McCartney was the main contributor to the song (Lennon reportedly helped with one of the verses) [1]. The song's title is derived from the name of a street in the band's hometown, Liverpool. The area that surrounds its junction with Smithdown Road is also commonly called Penny Lane. Locally the term "Penny Lane" was the name given to Allerton Road and Smithdown Road and its busy shopping area. Penny Lane is named after James Penny, an 18th century slave trader.[2]

McCartney and John Lennon grew up in the area and they would meet at Penny Lane junction to catch a bus into the centre of the city. The street is an important landmark, sought out by most Beatles fans touring Liverpool. In the past, street signs saying "Penny Lane" were constant targets of tourist theft and had to be continually replaced. Eventually, city officials gave up and simply began painting the street name on the sides of buildings. This practice has now stopped (2007) and more thief resistant "Penny Lane" street signs have been installed.

Following the success of the double A-side "Yellow Submarine"/"Eleanor Rigby", Brian Epstein inquired if they had any new material available. Therefore, both songs, though recorded during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, were ultimately left off it altogether — a decision George Martin regrets to this day. This single was also the first in the UK to come in a picture sleeve, a practice rarely used there. However, packaging singles in individually designed sleeves was a standard in the US and various other countries (such as Japan).

Instruments

The Beatles used a variety of different instruments including drums, guitar, bass, violin, harmonica, cello, and (famously) piccolo trumpet.

Context

A penny lane street sign

One reason they came up with this song is from John's friend Tess who found a dog called Penny in a lane. The barber shop mentioned in the song was, according to McCartney, a shop owned by a Mr. Bioletti, who has claimed to have cut hair for Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison when they were children. The fire station in the song ("It's a clean machine") was not at Penny Lane junction, but a short walk away along Allerton Road. It was around the corner near to where Mather Avenue meets Rose Lane. The station is very close to the site of Quarry Bank School, which Lennon attended. Mather Avenue leads to Forthlin Road, home of McCartney. The line about the banker with a motor car probably refers to an employee of the Penny Lane branch of Barclays bank, which was situated on one of the corners of the junction. However, there were also two other nearby banks. These were TSB (now Lloyd's TSB) and Martin's Bank (later to be merged into Barclays Bank).

The promotional film for the song was not in fact filmed at Penny Lane — The Beatles were reluctant to travel to Liverpool. Street scenes of the Beatles were actually filmed in and around Angel Lane in London's East End. The outdoor scenes were filmed at Knole Park in Sevenoaks, where the promotional film for "Strawberry Fields Forever" was also shot. Both videos were selected by New York's MoMA as some of the most influential music videos in the late 1960s. Film of Penny Lane was included - with some scenes of green Liverpool buses and a brief overhead view of the 'shelter in the middle of the roundabout', but none of the Beatles attended.

Sgt. Peppers Bistro in the middle of the roundabout as it appears today

The 'shelter in the middle of a roundabout' refers to the old bus shelter, now a cafe/restaurant with a Beatles theme. This is Penny Lane Bus Terminus and is officially on Smithdown Place.

Lyrics and music

Penny Lane is prime example of McCartney's ability to match tonal movement with lyrical movement.

1. The Verse and Chorus are in the different keys of I, B Major, and VIIb, A Major, respectively. The lyrics reflect the different tonal contexts in how McCartney's relationship with Penny Lane changes from being in the 3rd person in the Verse ("In Penny Lane there is...") to the 1st person in the Chorus ("Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes"); in a sense, the metaphorical 'Penny Lane' is represented by the new key of A Major.

2. The song conflates different temporal moments. The sky is referred to as blue, and yet it is raining. Events are apparently occurring in November, since the "pretty nurse" is selling poppies for Remembrance day (11 November), yet the "fish and finger pie" (a reference to heavy petting) is "in summer".

3. An example of McCartney's gift for mirroring the mood of the words in the music is evident in the lyrics "Very strange", which is sung at the end of a short modulatory phrase designed to take us to the new key of VIIb. At the end of the Verse the music lands on B Minor, the parallel minor that will act as the ii of V of the new key of A Major. When we consider that other popular songwriters of the 20th Century, for example Bruce Springsteen, rarely stray outside the domain of safe, diatonic harmony, this must certainly have been a strange sound for the listener.

4. Penny Lane's instrumental shows influence of The Beach Boys' song "God Only Knows", released a few months earlier. McCartney has repeatedly listed "God Only Knows" as one of his favourite songs of all time. The links between the two songs are especially noticeable in the four-in-the-bar block chords on piano and the loping rhythm of the bass guitar — both of which were played by McCartney. The piano part was multi-tracked supposedly by all four Beatles playing the same descending chord sequence individually.

5. An innovative and highly effective feature of the song was the piccolo trumpet solo played by David Mason. This is thought to be the first use of this instrument (a distinctive, speciality instrument pitched an octave higher than the standard B-flat trumpet) in pop music, where it is now (in certain genres) almost a commonplace. McCartney was dissatisfied with the initial attempts at the song's instrumental fill (one of which is released on Anthology 2), and was inspired to use the instrument after hearing Mason's performance in a BBC radio broadcast of the second Brandenburg Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach [3].

Penny Lane today

File:Pennyllane2.jpg

A view down Penny Lane

It is a tribute to the creative genius of The Beatles that they were able to fashion a distinguished song from memories of an undistinguished suburban road junction. Prior to securing international fame, Penny Lane's chief renown was as the terminus for several bus routes from the city centre and as the site, in the middle of the roundabout, of a handily located public convenience. The area remained largely unremarkable for the remainder of the 1960s and the 1970s; its most distinguishing feature was, perhaps, the regular arrival of tour buses from which tourists who would alight, take a photograph or two, and then get back on the bus.

Towards the end of the 1970s, businesses that set up shop there included Penny Lane Records, Sven Books (Liverpool's first high-street sex shop), and a wine bar known in the early years as Harper's Bizarre, now called Penny Lane Wine Bar. In the mid-1980s, the bus shelter and public convenience were converted into a café that marketed itself as Sgt. Pepper's. Following privatisation, the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive bus depot, slightly up the hill past Bioletti's, was knocked down and turned into a shopping precinct complete with a supermarket and a public house.

Since then, the general Penny Lane area has acquired a distinct trendiness and desirability. The "alternative" businesses (wholefood outlets, charity shops), the now expanded array of cafés, bars, bistros, and takeaway food emporiums, as well as handily located traditional businesses (Woolworths, WHSmiths and Clarke's cake shop) make the neighbourhood the most sought-after among Liverpool's large student population. Though the song refers to the "Penny Lane junction" on Smithdown Road, the street itself also leads down at the other end to the University of Liverpool's student halls of residence, near Sefton Park.

In July 2006, a Liverpool Councillor proposed renaming certain street names because they were linked to the slave trade. It was soon discovered that Penny Lane, named after James Penny, a wealthy 18th-century slave ship owner and strong opponent of abolitionism, was one of these streets. Ultimately, city officials decided to forego the name change and re-evaluate the entire renaming process. This story, however, is still being circulated, see The Observer, page 5, 9th July 2006 [4]

Quotes

From Journal of Mundane Behavior, February 2001 2(1):

But back to The Beatles: consider if you will, McCartney's "Penny Lane", a portrait of a village virtually teeming with Nowhere Men. Penny Lane is a study in mundanity, the simple sights and sounds of a suburban British neighbourhood; it's also one of the most stunningly gorgeous songs in the world. The descriptions of completely generalized, almost homogenous people and practices off set with small details and punctuated by a central contradiction (example: "And the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain; very strange"), the revolving chorus ("And mean while back in Penny Lane is in my ears..."), all set to that rich melody, with the horns, the flute, augh! Splendid! Additionally, it contains the lines that probably most influenced my own artistic point of view: "Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes/There beneath the blue suburban skies..." The persistence of memory, the importance of experience, the way the smallest visual and aural details build up to form and inform this amazing thing we call A Life, all summed up in these simplest of lines. Or perhaps I'm imagining things. It's been known to happen.

Facts and figures

• The original mix of "Penny Lane" had an additional flourish of piccolo trumpet notes at the end of the song. This mix was quickly superseded by one without the last trumpet passage, but not before a handful of promotional copies had been pressed and sent to radio stations. These recordings were among the rarest and most valuable Beatles collectibles but are now available on the "anthology 2" CD.
• The mysterious lyrics "A four of fish and finger pie" are British slang. "A four of fish" refers to fourpennyworth of fish and chips, while "finger pie" is sexual slang of the time(see above), apparently referring to intimate fondlings between teenagers in the bus shelter, which was a familiar meeting place. The combination of "fish and finger" also puns on fish fingers. The lyrics as printed on the Blue (1967-1970) Album, however, are "Full of fish and finger pies" which are incorrect.
• In August 1987, the piccolo trumpet played by David Mason on "Penny Lane" and two other Beatles tracks ("All You Need Is Love" and "Magical Mystery Tour") was sold in an auction at Sotheby's for $10,846.
• Upon the release of the "Penny Lane" single, Douglas Adams claimed to have beaten up a child who'd heard the song on the radio, reportedly just to get him to hum the tune.
• In the 1968 film Wonderwall, Jane Birkin's character, a suicidal model, is named Penny Lane. Also, in the 2000 film Almost Famous, Kate Hudson's character, the famous "Band Aid" who travels with the band is named Penny Lane. Hudson's character also attempts suicide. Another fictional Penny Lane is a minor character on the animated show Daria.
• Rolling Stone ranked the song at #449 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Charts

Chart (1967)	Peak position
Canada CHUM Chart	1
UK Singles Chart	2
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	1
United World Chart	1

External links

• An appreciation of the song from the McSweeneys.net series of Short Essays on Favorite Songs, Inspired by Nick Hornby's Songbook.
• Golden Oldies of Music Video a presentation from New York's MoMA originally screened on April 17, 2003
• Trumpet fan site about the Penny Lane piccolo trumpet solo
• St Barnabas Church Penny Lane
• A site where you can listen to the song and read the lyrics
• Old Photo of Angel Lane, London (Video Location)