"Penny Lane" is a song by the Beatles. It was written primarily by Paul McCartney but credited to the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership. The lyrics refer to a real street in Liverpool, England.
Recorded during the Sgt. Pepper album sessions, and intended for inclusion, "Penny Lane" was released in February 1967 as one side of a double A-sided single, along with "Strawberry Fields Forever", following pressure from EMI, the Beatles' record company, after several months' absence of new material. Although the song did not top the charts in Britain, it was still a top ten hit across Europe. The song would make its LP debut on the US version of the band's album, Magical Mystery Tour, rather than on the British double EP on which the LP was based.
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "Penny Lane" at number 456 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Video Penny Lane
Background and inspiration
During the 1960s, Penny Lane was a significant bus terminus for several routes, and buses with "Penny Lane" displayed were common throughout Liverpool. The name Penny Lane is also used for the area that surrounds its junction with Smithdown Road, Smithdown Place (where the terminus was located) and Allerton Road, including a busy shopping area.
According to Barry Miles, the fireman and fire engine referred to in the lyrics are based upon the fire station at Mather Avenue, which is "about half a mile down the road" from Penny Lane. The mysterious lyrics "Four of fish and finger pies" are British slang. "A four of fish" refers to fourpennyworth of fish and chips, while "finger pie" is sexual slang of the time, apparently referring to intimate fondlings between teenagers in the shelter, which was a familiar meeting place. The combination of "fish and finger" also puns on fish fingers. Ian Macdonald suggests an LSD influence, and that the lyrical imagery points to McCartney first taking LSD in late 1966. However, he also cites a different story, which dates McCartney's first LSD trip to 21 March 1967. Macdonald finishes with the comment: "Despite its seeming innocence, there are few more LSD-redolent phrases in the Beatles' output than the line ... in which the Nurse 'feels as if she's in a play' ... and 'is anyway'."
Maps Penny Lane
Recording
Production began in Studio 2 at Abbey Road on 29 December 1966 with piano as the main instrument. Initially, Paul McCartney recorded keyboard parts onto the individual tracks of the four-track tape: a basic piano rhythm on track one; a second piano, recorded through a Vox guitar amplifier with added reverb, on track two; a prepared piano producing a "honky-tonk" sound on track three; and percussion effects and a harmonium playing high notes fed through the guitar amplifier on track four. The following day, the four tracks were mixed together to form the first track of a new tape, to which vocals, drums, congas, guitar and bass were added in early January 1967. Brass and woodwind instruments were added on 9-10 January, in a score by George Martin, guided by McCartney's suggested melody lines.
On 17 January 1967, trumpet player David Mason recorded the piccolo trumpet solo. The solo, which was the result of a suggestion from McCartney after seeing a BBC performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto, is in a mock-Baroque style for which the piccolo trumpet (a small instrument built about one octave higher than the standard instrument) is particularly suited, having a clean and clear sound which penetrates well through thicker midrange textures. According to lead sound engineer Geoff Emerick, David Mason "nailed it" at some point during the recording; McCartney tried to get him to do another take but producer George Martin insisted it wasn't necessary, sensing Mason's fatigue. Emerick also notes in his book that prior to this recording, the high "E" was considered unobtainable by trumpet players and has been expected of them since the performance on the record. Mason was paid £27 and 10s for his performance on the recording.
The original US promo single 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 copies had been pressed and sent to radio stations. These recordings are among the rarest and most valuable Beatles collectibles. "Penny Lane" was mixed in stereo for the first time in 1971, for a West German issue of the Magical Mystery Tour LP, and in 1980 this mix of the song, with the addition of the trumpet ending, was included on the US Rarities compilation and the UK set The Beatles Box. A remix of the song released on Anthology 2 in 1996 also included the trumpet coda. The original promo single mix was made available again in 2017, when it was included on a CD of mono mixes in the six-disc 50th-anniversary edition of Sgt. Pepper. The two- and six-disc anniversary editions also featured a new remix of "Penny Lane" prepared by Giles Martin, designed to allow the keyboard parts to be heard distinctly.
Composition
The song has a double tonic structure of B major verse (in I-vi-ii-V cycles) and A major chorus connected by formal pivoting dominant chords. In the opening bars in B major, after singing "In Penny Lane" (in an F?-B-C?-D? melody note ascent) McCartney sings the major third of the first chord in the progression (on "Lane") and major seventh (on "barber") then switches to a Bm chord, singing the flattened third notes (on "know" with a i7 [Bm7] chord) and flattened seventh notes (on "come and go" [with a ?VImaj7 [Gmaj7] chord] and "say hello" [with a V7sus4 [F?7sus4] chord]). This has been described as a profound and surprising innovation involving abandoning mid-cycle what initially appears to be a standard I-vi-ii-V doo-wop pop chord cycle. To get from the verse "In the pouring rain - very strange" McCartney uses an E chord as a pivot, (it is a IV chord in the preceding B key and a V in the looming A key) to take listeners back into the chorus ("Penny Lane is in my ears ..."). Likewise to get back from the chorus of "There beneath the blue suburban skies I sit, and meanwhile back ... , McCartney uses an F?7 pivot chord (which is a VI in the old A key and a V in the new B key). The lyrics "very strange" and "meanwhile back" can be viewed as hinting at these complex tonal changes.
A feature of the song was the piccolo trumpet solo played by 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. Martin later wrote, "The result was unique, something which had never been done in rock music before." McCartney was dissatisfied with the initial attempts at the song's instrumental fill (one of which, recorded 12 January and featuring two cors anglais played by Dick Morgan and Mike Winfield, was released on Anthology 2), and was inspired to use the instrument after seeing Mason's performance on a BBC television broadcast of the second Brandenburg Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The song features contrasting verse-chorus form. Lyrically there are several ambiguous and surreal images. The song is seemingly narrated on a fine summer day ("beneath the blue suburban skies"), yet at the same time it is raining ("the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain") and approaching winter ("selling poppies from a tray" implies Remembrance Day, 11 November). Ian MacDonald has stated: "Seemingly naturalistic, the lyric scene is actually kaleidoscopic. As well as raining and shining at the same time, it is simultaneously summer and winter.".
Release
When a new Beatles single was requested by manager Brian Epstein, producer George Martin told him that the band had recorded "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever", which Martin considered to be the band's best songs up to that point. At the suggestion of Epstein, the two songs were released as a double A-side single, in a fashion identical to that of their previous single, "Yellow Submarine" / "Eleanor Rigby". Released in the US on 13 February 1967 and in the United Kingdom on 17 February 1967, the single failed to top the British charts, making it the first time since "Love Me Do" in 1962 for a Beatles single to peak lower than number one. The song stalled at number two, one place below Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me". On the national chart compiled by Melody Maker magazine, however, the combination topped the singles list for three weeks. In the United States, the song became the band's 13th single to reach number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, doing so for a week before being knocked off by the Turtles' song "Happy Together".
Since the Beatles usually did not include songs released as singles on their British albums, both songs were left off the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, a decision Martin later regretted. Both songs were later included on the aforementioned US Magical Mystery Tour album in November 1967. In 2017, both songs were included on the two-disc and six-disc 50th-anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper.
This was also the first single by the Beatles to be sold with a picture sleeve in the UK, a practice rarely used there at that time but common in the US and other countries.
Promotional film
The promotional film for "Penny Lane" was, together with the video for "Strawberry Fields Forever", one of the first examples of what later became known as a music video. The music video for the song was not filmed at Penny Lane, as the Beatles were reluctant to travel to Liverpool. Street scenes were filmed in and around Angel Lane in London's East End. The broken sequence of Lennon walking alone was filmed on the King's Road (at Markham Square) in Chelsea. The outdoor scenes were filmed at Knole Park in Sevenoaks on 30 January 1967. The promotional film for "Strawberry Fields Forever" was also shot at the same location, during the same visit.
Both films - directed by the Swede Peter Goldmann - were selected by New York's MoMA to be among the most influential promotional music films of the late 1960s. Film of "Penny Lane" and the nearby road Elm Hall Drive runs St.Banabas with some scenes of Liverpool buses.
The promo film is included in the Beatles' 2015 video compilation 1.
Song ownership
Northern Songs, the publishing company that owned all but four of the Beatles songs, was acquired by ATV - a media company owned by Lew Grade in 1969. By 1985 the company was being run by Australian entrepreneur Robert Holmes à Court, who decided to sell the catalogue to Michael Jackson.
Before the sale, Holmes à Court offered his 16-year-old daughter Catherine the chance to keep any song "in her name" from the catalogue. She chose "Penny Lane" as it was her favourite - despite her father's urging to choose "Yesterday", which was by far the biggest royalty-earning song on the books (and is in the top four global royalty earning songs of all time).
Catherine Holmes à Court-Mather is still the copyright owner of "Penny Lane" today, one of only five Lennon-McCartney Beatles songs not owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
Street
Penny Lane is believed to be named after James Penny, an 18th-century slave trader. Today the street is an important landmark, sought out by many 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 was stopped in 2007 and more theft-resistant "Penny Lane" street signs have since been installed, although some are still stolen.
Prior to securing international fame, Penny Lane's chief renown was as the terminus for the No 46 and No 99 bus routes to Walton, Old Swan and the city centre. The terminus included a purpose-built bus shelter, with waiting room and toilets for waiting passengers. The shelter is located on its own island, which is "the shelter in the middle of a roundabout" referred to in the song. In the 1980s, the shelter was bought privately and converted to the Sergeant Pepper's Bistro, though it eventually closed and remained out of commission until 2015 when it underwent refurbishment with the aim of reopening as a restaurant, although it was still not open as of October 2016.
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 (WHSmiths and Clarke's cake shop), make the neighbourhood the most sought-after among Liverpool's large student population. Though the song refers to 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.
Towards the end of the 1970s, businesses in Penny Lane included Penny Lane Records and a wine bar known in the early years as Harper's Bizarre, now called Penny Lane Wine Bar (this was actually a doctors' surgery, previously Drs Walton, Endbinder and Partners); the practice moved to Smithdown Place in the 1980s. Following privatisation, the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive bus depot, slightly up the hill past Bioletti's, was demolished and replaced with a shopping precinct complete with a supermarket and a public house.
In July 2006, a Liverpool Councillor proposed renaming certain streets because their names 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 forgo the name change and entirely re-evaluate renaming. On 10 July 2006, it was revealed that Liverpool officials said they would modify the proposal to exclude Penny Lane.
Personnel
According to Ian MacDonald:
- The Beatles
- Paul McCartney - vocal, pianos, bass, harmonium, tambourine, effects
- John Lennon - vocal, pianos, guitar, congas, handclaps
- George Harrison - backing vocal, lead guitar, handclaps
- Ringo Starr - drums, handbell
- Additional musicians
- George Martin - piano, orchestral arrangement
- Ray Swinfield, P. Goody, Manny Winters - flutes, piccolos
- David Mason - piccolo trumpet solo
- Leon Calvert, Freddy Clayton, Bert Courtley, Duncan Campbell - trumpets, flugelhorn
- Dick Morgan, Mike Winfield - oboes, cor anglais
- Frank Clarke - double bass
In August 1987, the piccolo trumpet Mason played 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.
Charts and certifications
Cover versions
- Paul Mauriat recorded an instrumental version of "Penny Lane" on his Album nº 5 (1967).
- Al Di Meola included an instrumental version of the song on his CD All Your Life (2013).
- The Rutles' song "Doubleback Alley" is a pastiche of this song.
- Count Basie recorded a swing version on his album Basie on the Beatles (1969), which also includes other Lennon-McCartney songs such as "Hey Jude" and "Get Back".
- Elvis Costello - whose mother grew up less than a mile from Penny Lane - performed the song at the White House on 2 June 2010, accompanied by McCartney's band and a trumpeter from the United States Marine Band, when McCartney was given the Gershwin Award.
References
Citations
Sources
External links
- Alan W. Pollack's Notes on "Penny Lane"
- Golden Oldies of Music Video a presentation from New York's MoMA originally screened on 17 April 2003
- Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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