PENNY LANE
“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. (More from Wikipedia)
One of the early fruits of this new stance is a Beatles single from that period, “Penny Lane” b/w “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Penny Lane is a real street in Liverpool, near one of John Lennon’s boyhood homes; the actual place that Paul McCartney was writing about was a bus stop where he would have to change buses when going to John’s house (and vice versa). Strawberry Field is a Salvation Army children’s home in Liverpool; in his song, John was writing about the garden there where he used to play as a child. Originally planned for the Sgt. Pepper album, EMI Records pressured the band into releasing them only as a single; the songs were later included on the U.S. version of the Magical Mystery Tour album.
(June 2015)
