Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 29, 30 December 1966, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 17 January 1967
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Released: 17 February 1967 (UK), 13 February 1967 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, piano, bass, harmonium, tambourine, percussion
John Lennon: backing vocals, piano, guitar, congas, handclaps
George Harrison: backing vocals, guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, handbell
George Martin: piano
Ray Swinfield, P Goody, Manny Winters, Dennis Walton: flutes, piccolos
David Mason, Leon Calvert, Freddy Clayton, Bert Courtley, Duncan Campbell: trumpets, flugelhorn
Dick Morgan, Mike Winfield: oboes, cor anglais
Frank Clarke: double bass
Available on:
Magical Mystery Tour
1
Anthology 2
Penny Lane was released in February 1967 as a double a-side with Strawberry Fields Forever, in what has been described as the greatest single ever released.
The single found The Beatles at their artistic and creative peak, and Penny Lane - as much as any of their songs released in 1967 - summed up the technicolour world that burst forth from the monochrome early 1960s, and the positive spirit that anything was possible.
A lot of our formative years were spent walking around those places. Penny Lane was the depot I had to change buses at to get from my house to John's and to a lot of my friends. It was a big bus terminal which we all knew very well. I sang in the choir at St Barnabas Church opposite.
Anthology
Penny Lane was written by Paul McCartney in the music room at his London home, 7 Cavendish Avenue, near to Abbey Road Studios. It was composed on an upright piano which he had recently had painted in psychedelic rainbow patterns by artist David Vaughan.
When I came to write it, John came over and helped me with the third verse, as often was the case. We were writing childhood memories: recently faded memories from eight or ten years before, so it was a recent nostalgia, pleasant memories for both of us. All the places were still there, and because we remembered it so clearly we could have gone on.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
John Lennon is said to have contributed the line "Four of fish and finger pie", which derived from a crude Liverpudlian sexual term.
It's part fact, part nostalgia for a great place - blue suburban skies, as we remember it, and it's still there. And we put in a joke or two: 'Four of fish and finger pie.' The women would never dare say that. except to themselves. Most people wouldn't hear it, but 'finger pie' is just a nice little joke for the Liverpool lads who like a bit of smut.
Anthology
The song's title had been toyed with by the two writers since Rubber Soul, when an embryonic In My Life had Lennon imagining a bus journey through Liverpool, listing names of places remembered. When released alongside Strawberry Fields Forever, both songs saw both Lennon and McCartney looking back to their childhood in markedly different ways.
We were often answering each other's songs so it might have been my version of a memory song but I don't recall. It was childhood reminiscences: there is a bus stop called Penny Lane. There was a barber shop called Bioletti's with head shots of the haircuts you can have in the window and I just took it all and arted it up a little bit to make it sound like he was having a picture exhibition in his window. It was all based on real things; there was a bank on the corner so I imagined the banker, it was not a real person, and his slightly dubious habits and the little children laughing at him, and the pouring rain. The fire station was a bit of poetic licence; there's a fire station about half a mile down the road, not actually in Penny Lane, but we needed a third verse so we took that and I was very pleased with the line 'It's a clean machine'. I still like that phrase, you occasionally hit a lucky little phrase and it becomes more than a phrase. So the banker and the barber shop and the fire station were all real locations.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Penny Lane was a street in Liverpool, which also lent its name to the surrounding area. Lennon and McCartney both lived nearby, and often met at the Penny Lane junction to catch a bus into the city centre.
The bank was there, and that was where the tram sheds were and people waiting and the inspector stood there, the fire engines were down there. It was just reliving childhood.
Rolling Stone
Penny Lane was originally intended to be a part of The Beatles' eighth album, which would turn out to be Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
We started off with Strawberry Fields, and then we recorded When I'm Sixty-Four and Penny Lane. They were all intended for the next album. We didn't know it was Sgt Pepper then - they were just going to be tracks on The New Album - but it was going to be a record created in the studio, and there were going to be songs that couldn't be performed live.
Anthology
Promotional film
Once it was decided that Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever would be released as a double a-side single, The Beatles agreed to make a promotional film for distribution to television companies. Both songs' films were produced by Tony Bramwell and directed by Peter Goldmann.
On 5 February 1967 The Beatles were filmed in Stratford, London, where they rode horses and walked in and around the Angel Lane area. Two days later they went to Knole Park in Sevenoaks, Kent, where the Strawberry Fields Forever film had been made a few days earlier. They rode horses through an archway, and then sat at a dinner table where they were served with their musical instruments.
The Penny Lane one on the horses wasn't quite that exciting for me; it was a bit real!
Anthology
The footage was intercut with material shot in Liverpool, of the areas mentioned in the song and of the Liverpudlian green buses. The Beatles did not feature in these segments, which were filmed on an unknown date.
Related articles:
- UK single: Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever
- Struggling Penny Lane businesses ask for help
- Anthology 2
- BBC chart reveals best-selling UK Beatles songs
- When I'm Sixty-Four
Where can we hear Penny Lane with the original trumpet ending ?
Hi Barbara. Have a listen to the mix on Anthology 2 - it can be heard at the end of that.
You can also hear it on the version released on Capitol's "Rarities" LP, released sometime in the seventies.
Paul's bass playing brilliance at it's best. The note selection is just incredible. Ranks in my book as one of the best pop tunes ever recorded. It's right up there with God Only Knows by Brian Wilson. For anyone studying melody construction, there is much to learn from this composition. I will never ever get tired of hearing this song.
You're right, Phil, about the bass. Paul remains the only true "lead bass" player in pop music.
'Penny Lane' to all those growing up in the 60's, this 'was' the way we saw life in our own small comunities. We had a girl living down the block named, 'Penny', who just loved this song! How wonderful we thought for a 'Musical Group' to write such an 'every person' song to fit all places, for all times! Such we're 'The Beatles', true heros' to a young generation in search of their 'Voice'. Thank You, Beatles,...Forever!
does anyone know where to find the archway in knole park that the beatles rode through? and what about John Entwistle for a lead bass player in a pop band?
Paul was easily the most prominent bass player in pop music at the time with John Entwistle of the Who and Rick Danko of the Band as the closest competition, in my opinion.
(By the way, I thoroughly recommend Entwistle's first solo album "Smash Your Head Against The Wall"!).
Of course there were other bass players at the time that were consistently solid (especially Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones and Pete Quaife of the Kinks).
Don't see how Rick Danko could really be called prominent in 1967 - a handful of unbilled appearances on Bob Dylan singles would be his only contribution to the pop charts. James Jamerson was the era's most prominent bassist, aside from Berry Gordy's keeping him totally anonymous.
Danko did not have to appear on the pop charts to be a prominent bass player prior to 1968. His work with Dylan on the 1966 world tour speaks for itself.
Sonny Boy Williamson was going to collaborate with the Hawks prior to his untimely death in the mid-sixties.
That is the nature of Danko's credibility.
Nobody's questioning his abilities! I guess it's the word "prominent" we're interpreting differently.
Yes, obviously we are interpreting differently.
I believe "influential" is a better word, especially for James Jamerson, in relation to his singular inspiration to so many well known bass players.
After all, how could James Jamerson be "the era's most prominent bassist" and be "totally anonymous" at the same time?
OK: it's his playing, his sound, his influence that were prominent, and not the man himself, except in retrospect.
I've not written a blog post on the shooting of the Penny Lane video yet, but the archway can be seen here. You can see where the dust path goes under the arch in the middle of the map - the sun is casting a shadow of the arch.
“Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of a queen
He likes to keep his fire engine clean
It’s a clean machine”
The English is not my native language. I have found in the Dictionary of the English military slang that “an hourglass” means a thin waist synched by the belt. This would fit better with the character of the Fireman. Can anybody who’s native language is English confirm that?
Not quite. An hourglass is a glass timing device with two chambers and a narrow bit in the middle. There's a picture and explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hourglass
An 'hourglass figure' is when a woman has wide hips and a thin waist, and derives from the shape of the hourglass. The fireman in Penny Lane had the timing device in his pocket, not the woman's figure!
Joe, you are not right. Hour glass in the fireman's pocket? No, we only know about the portrait of a Queen. But thank you for the explanation based on female body geometry. I like it.
"Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
AND in his pocket is a portrait of a Queen
He likes to keep his fire engine clean
It's a clean machine"