Penny Lane

February 13, 1967

Penny Lane is a composed by Paul McCartney and John Lennon of the Beatles song. It was released on February 13, 1967 along with Strawberry Fields Forever as a single with two A- sides. The two pieces were of equal importance, would not or could not give preference to the group and thus the other ban on the B-side.

Formation

The recordings for Penny Lane took place from late December 1966 through the first weeks of January of 1967 at London's Abbey Road Studios. It was produced by George Martin piece.

The incisive trumpet part was not provided, the idea came to McCartney when he saw a performance of the Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach on TV. The solo was played by David Mason on piccolo trumpet. In several recording sessions at first base tracks were recorded and later added overdubs with oboes and flutes.

Only in 1980 appeared on the American edition of Rarities a hybrid of the German stereo version and the original end of the song, in which again David Mason piccolo trumpet is heard, fades with the Penny Lane. So far, this version is not available on CD, because on Anthology 2 Take with an oboe was used.

Content

Penny Lane is a street in Liverpool, which, because of the popularity of the song, again and again the street signs were stolen, so they were eventually replaced by painted versions. The street is where John Lennon and Paul McCartney were growing up. All the mentioned places and people of the song come from McCartney's memories or from a notebook, in which he - as a young man waiting on John Lennon - wrote observations. The lyrical I is at a bus stop while it is raining in torrents, and observed daily and strange things and people: a hairdresser who shows in his salon portraits of all the people he knows. Interestingly, keeping all passers-by to head in this salon to greet the hairdresser. Then talk of a bank employee, who never wears a Mack in the pouring rain, a fireman with an hourglass and a portrait of the Queen in the pocket of a pretty nurse, the poppies sold. Interestingly, the descriptive text is the voltage between the observations that come in stanzas expressed and the refrain, in which the lyric I is located under a summery blue suburban sky and remembers back to these observations. At the words "four of fish and finger pie" ( in German about " four fingers and fish ") in the lyrics is a hidden allusion to Petting - and thus one of the few dirty jokes in the work of the Beatles.

Publication

The single was awarded on March 20, 1967, a gold record.

Originally Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever were meant for publication on the album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Instead, both songs then appeared on a single. In the United States Capitol Records took the title to "fill " the LP Magical Mystery Tour.

For Penny Lane a promotional film was shot. The next single was the debut single Love Me Do The Beatles the only one not the top position of the British hit parade reached, although it contains two of the most famous pieces of the band. The reason for this was that the sales of the single were divided by two in order to operate as two individual singles in the British charts can. Took first place instead Engelbert Humperdinck with Single Release Me