Penny Lane, The Beatles' 1967 hit is one of my personal favourites by the Fab Four. It is a song about an ordinary neighbourhood and how ordinary people act in strange ways (reinforcing that everyone is a bit strange). Perhaps one of the reasons I love this song so much is that there is no real hidden or double-meaning (except for maybe "A four of fish and finger pies" which is allegedly some lewd British slang). It is a straight-forward tale of ordinary, strange life.
The real life Penny Lane is a street near John Lennon's house in Liverpool - the street where he and Paul McCartney usually met to ride a bus into the city proper.
If the melody sounds a bit simplistic, it is because it is. It is simple and powerful. It is impossible to not get the tune stuck in your head (in a good way). This is a prime example of how John Lennon and Paul McCartney had an uncanny knack for churning out memorable hits. Some would say that it is an empty, meaningless song, but there is always something substantial in songs about real (if ordinary) people and places in time - at least in my humble opinion. I love songs that leave you feeling like you were allowed to participate for even a brief moment in the songwriter's reality; songs that leave the soot of real life on your clothes. I think that is one of reason this song has remained powerful and memorable even fifty plus years later.
This song belongs to an enigmatic slot in time in The Beatles continuum. They were hitting their pop-prime and starting to develop into an interesting and experimental musical powerhouse. I would liken Magical Mystery Tour to OK Computer by Radiohead in that it has the familiar feel of the early Beatles albums but is starting to test the limits of popular music without alienating those early fans.
A promotional videos accompanied the release where members of The Beatles are shown acting out to the lyrics. Though it was not really filmed in Penny Lane the short film used techniques such as reversing, slow motion, dramatic lighting, strange camera shots, and colour filtering which for some marks the beginning of the modern music video.
Amazingly, Penny Lane was only released because there was no other song scheduled for release for quite some time. As if it was an afterthought.
Despite this seeming thoughtlessness associated with the release, this song has remained one of the most iconic Beatles songs of all time.
If you like The Beatles then you might also check out Evan Clarke. The Beatles are one of his main influences.
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