Penny Lane
"Penny Lane" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double A-side single with "Strawberry Fields Forever" in February 1967. It was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. The lyrics refer to Penny Lane, a street in Liverpool, and make mention of the sights and characters that McCartney recalled from his upbringing in the city.
This article is about the song. For other uses, see Penny Lane (disambiguation)."Penny Lane"
"Strawberry Fields Forever" (double A-side)
13 February 1967
29 December 1966 – 17 January 1967
EMI, London
3:03
- Parlophone (UK)
- Capitol (US)
The Beatles began recording "Penny Lane" in December 1966, intending it as a song for their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Instead, after it was issued as a single to satisfy record company demand for a new release, the band adhered to their policy of omitting previously released singles from their albums. The song features numerous modulations that occur mid-verse and between its choruses. Session musician David Mason played a piccolo trumpet solo for its bridge section.
"Penny Lane" was a top-five hit across Europe and topped the US Billboard Hot 100. In Britain, it was the first Beatles single since "Please Please Me" in 1963 to fail to reach number 1 on the Record Retailer chart. In November 1967, "Penny Lane" was included on the US Magical Mystery Tour album. In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked the track at number 280 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2006, Mojo ranked the song at number 9 of "The 101 Greatest Beatles Songs".
In 2011, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[7]
Release[edit]
"Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were released as a double A-side single,[85] in a fashion identical to that of the Beatles' previous single, "Eleanor Rigby" / "Yellow Submarine".[64][86] The release took place in the United States on 13 February 1967[87] and in the United Kingdom on 17 February.[88] It was the first single by the Beatles to be sold with a picture sleeve in the UK, a practice rarely used there at that time.[85][89] Expectations were high for the release, since it was the band's first new music since they had decided to abandon touring,[90] a decision that had led to speculation in the press in late 1966 that the group would disband.[91][92] Comparing the two sides, author Clinton Heylin writes that McCartney was possibly "fearful of alienating fans unduly" with the more dense and experimental "Strawberry Fields Forever". He says that with "Penny Lane", McCartney was "again cast in the role of the great populariser" by providing the "more prosaic depiction of the Liverpool of their youth ... set to another of his eminently hummable melodies".[93] In his book Electric Shock, Peter Doggett describes "Strawberry Fields Forever" as art pop, "self-consciously excluding the mass audience", and likens "Penny Lane" to pop art in its evoking "multifaceted substance out of the everyday".[94]
The promotional films for the single presented the Beatles' moustachioed look to their audience for the first time.[72][73] The new look was the focus of much scrutiny,[95] as facial hair went against convention for pop idols and implied maturation.[96][nb 7] Promotion for the single and its musical content left many listeners unable to recognise the act as the Beatles.[98] In author Kevin Courrier's description, the picture sleeve showed the Beatles dressed and posing formally as if they were "arcane artifacts from the nineteenth century", with the portrait set inside a gold picture frame. The reverse was a collage of photos of the band members as infants.[98]
The clips were first broadcast in America on The Ed Sullivan Show and in Britain on Top of the Pops,[99] a day before the respective release dates in those two countries.[100] On 25 February, they aired on The Hollywood Palace, a traditional US variety program hosted by actor Van Johnson, who claimed that the Beatles had created the films especially for his show.[101] Amid screams from female members of the studio audience, Johnson described the "Penny Lane" clip as "the most imaginative treatment of a song I have ever seen".[102] According to Rodriguez, however, Johnson's reaction was clearly bemusement at "what youth entertainment had become", as demonstrated in his mannered introduction to "Strawberry Fields Forever".[103] The films attracted a similar level of confusion on the more youth-focused American Bandstand, on 11 March, where host Dick Clark invited comments from his studio audience.[104] Clark introduced the clip with a warning that it showed a "very interesting and different looking Beatles", after which he sought opinions from his teenage audience with what author Doyle Greene describes as "an urgent solemnity as if he were discussing the Zapruder film".[99] The responses were less dismissive than those given to "Strawberry Fields Forever".[105][106] Male reaction was marginally more favourable than female, as the women variously focused on the "weird", "ugly" or supposedly aged appearance of the band members.[107] After "Penny Lane", one young man complained that the Beatles were "as bad as the Monkees",[99] while another said, "They went out with the Twist."[70]
Since the Beatles usually did not include songs released as singles on their albums, both "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were left off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[108] With their omission, the Liverpool childhood theme that had been a loose concept behind the album was abandoned.[109] Courrier describes the single as "a conceptual 45 if ever there was one".[5][nb 8] Martin came to regret the decision to omit the two songs,[112][113] describing it as "the biggest mistake of my professional life".[114][nb 9] Against the Beatles' wishes, "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were included on the US Magical Mystery Tour album in November 1967.[116][117] In 2017, both songs were included on the two-disc and six-disc 50th-anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper.
Song ownership, McCartney live performances and cover versions[edit]
In 1969, the Beatles' publishing company Northern Songs was acquired by ATV, a media company owned by Lew Grade.[163] By 1985, ATV was being run by Australian entrepreneur Robert Holmes à Court, who decided to sell the catalogue to Michael Jackson.[164] Before the sale, Jackson allowed the rights for "Penny Lane" to be exempt from the deal and given instead to Holmes à Court's teenage daughter.[165] As of 2009, Catherine Holmes à Court-Mather was still the copyright owner of "Penny Lane", which is one of the few Lennon–McCartney songs not owned by Sony Music Publishing.[164][nb 12]
"Penny Lane" was instantly popular with both contemporary pop artists and supper club entertainers. According to author Alan Clayson, it was one of several McCartney compositions that "walked a safe and accessible line" and allowed easy interpretation during a period when "schmaltz was represented in the charts as much as psychedelia".[166] Artists who have covered the song include Amen Corner, Judy Collins, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, Engelbert Humperdinck, James Last, Enoch Light, Kenny Rankin, John Valby, Newton Wayland and Kai Winding.[161] The Rutles' 1978 song "Doubleback Alley" is a parody of "Penny Lane".[136] Written by Innes, it was part of the Rutles' TV film satirising the Beatles' career, All You Need Is Cash.[167]
McCartney has regularly included the song in his tour set lists.[168] He first performed it on his New World Tour in 1993.[169] Elvis Costello performed "Penny Lane" during a concert at the White House in June 2010 when McCartney received the Gershwin Prize from President Barack Obama.[136] In his introduction to the song, Costello said that his mother had grown up less than a mile from Penny Lane, and so hearing the Beatles single had been a powerful moment for him and his family.[170]
According to Ian MacDonald:[171]
The Beatles
Additional musicians