Penny Lane was released on 13th February 1967 as a double A-side with Strawberry Fields Forever. The songs are perfect match, as they deal with the theme of nostalgia for the Beatles’ home city of Liverpool. Despite this, both songs are highly contrasting. McCartney’s Penny Lane exudes bright optimism, whereas Lennon’s offering is steeped in psychedelia.

The pair of songs are often viewed as the finest single release from The Beatles. In this blog post I will cover some of the essential stylistic features of Penny Lane, and examine how the song relates to wider trends in McCartney’s songwriting career.

Where is Penny Lane?

Penny Lane is a somewhat nondescript road than runs north-east to south-west in the Allerton and Mossely Hill region of south Liverpool. It is named after the eighteenth-century slave owner William Penny, although it is doubtful that McCartney was aware of this fact in 1966-1967. The part of the road mentioned by the song is at the northerly end of the road, as it meets the junction of Smithdown Place.

It might surprise people to learn that both the bus “shelter in the middle of the roundabout” and the “barber”(now called Tony Slavin, but known as Bioletti’s in the 1950s-60s) are actually located on Smithdown Place.

Here, McCartney reflects on the importance of Penny Lane in his youth:

Penny Lane” was kind of nostalgic, but it was really [about] a place that John and I knew … I’d get a bus to his house and I’d have to change at Penny Lane, or the same with him to me, so we often hung out at that terminus, like a roundabout. It was a place that we both knew, and so we both knew the things that turned up in the story

Main Musical Features

Descending Bass Line

Each verse in Penny Lane is formed on a descending bass line in B major. It steps down in a diatonic manner from B3 to E3 in the highest region of the bass guitar’s range, before repeating the pattern at the lower octave. Just before the very beginning of the verse, there is a triplet flourish that alternates between B3 and F#3.

The distinctive high-range bass guitar opening can be seen here:

The bass guitar part is doubled at the lower octave by the left hand of the piano part.

Triplet-Based Vocal Melody

Above a steady pulse of crotchet/quarter-note piano chords and a descending bass line, the vocal melody skips along with a rhythm that is formed from swing-based quavers/eighths and triplets. This rhythm lends an unmistakable “bounce” to the melody, and the vocal optimistically skips across the bar-line.

Chord Structure

The chords of the verse are a predictable I -vi – ii – V sequence (B major; G# minor; C# minor; F# major), which is the foundation of doo-wop and hundreds of other songs, such as Blue Moon, Stand By Me or the chorus of The Beatles’ Happiness Is A Warm Gun.

Change to B Minor

At end of the second phrase, something very special happens. Instead of arriving on the predicted chord of C# minor, we arrive at the totally unexpected chord; tonic minor chord of B minor. This represents a sudden change of key to the parallel minor key of B minor.

After the jaunty and melody and comfortingly-familiar chord sequence, this move to B minor represents a sudden injection of pathos. McCartney gives us time to digest this dramatic switch to B minor by suspending the vocal – the melody stops in its tracks on the word “know” at 0:07.

The next phrase, beginning with “all the people” is also in B minor, moving from the tonic, to the chord of G#m7b5, formed on the sixth degree of the scale in B melodic minor.

The song re-transitions back to B major for the beginning of the next verse on the phrase “stop and say hello”, which ends on the chord of F#7.

Key Change In The Chorus

The chorus of Penny Lane is in the key of A major. This modulation is achieved through the use of the chord of E major at 0:32 on the words “very strange”. We expect to hear the chord of B major after the chord of F# major and thus the chord of E major arrives as an interrupted cadence – it is indeed “very strange” (word-painting). E major is, of course, the dominant chord of A major.

Contrast With The Verse

The vocal melody of the chorus begins with a triplet upbeat, from then on, it is of a completely different character. Whereas the verse skips along with triplets and swung duplets, each phrase of the chorus starts with a declamatory dotted-quarter (crotchet) and ends with dotted half-note (minim). Moreover, each main beat in the chorus falls on a chord tone for each respective chord as opposed to a passing note.

This lends the chorus an anthem-like character, and it feels like we have truly arrived at the song’s main message.

The second three-bar phrase is harmonised by a descant vocal part:

Piccolo Trumpet Solo

The solo during the song’s fourth verse had originally been scored as a cor anglais solo. The cor anglais version of Penny Lane can be heard on Anthology 2:

Realising that this could be improved upon, McCartney called in the services of the trumpet player David Mason, after seeing the piccolo trumpet in a TV screening of J.S.Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no.2.

The solo itself seems to have been devised by McCartney, as George Martin explained:

Paul would think up the notes he wanted, and I would write them down for David

The solo was played on a Bb piccolo trumpet, which has a range approximately an octave higher than a standard Bb trumpet, up to G6. The solo is a dazzling combination of rising triplet sequences, arpeggios and repeated tones. The final flourish is an arpeggio in E major that arrives on E6, only a minor third below the very top of the piccolo trumpet’s range

In this video, David Mason gives a fascinating account of the recording session:

Final Chorus

The song’s final chorus, which also serves as a coda, is in the key of B major. A return to the home key provides a sense of fulfilment. In addition, moving the vocal melody up a major second also serves to push the descant vocals to B4, at the top of the tenor range:

Other Instrumental Detail

In addition to the solo piccolo part, Penny Lane is rich in other instrumental textures, including double bass, piccolo, flugel horn, Bb trumpets, cor anglais, oboe – and a tubular bell for the “fireman rushes in” effect.

The Dutch band The Analogues, provide the world’s most accurate and authentic performances of The Beatles’ hits. You can see here the level of instrumental detail in Penny Lane that the band recreate in a live setting:

Comparison With Other Songs

There is no song like Penny Lane in McCartney’s solo catalogue after The Beatles. However, we can see certain musical devices at use in other songs. The alternation between tonic major and minor is a feature of each verse of Cafe On The Left Bank from London Town (1978). However, the song begins in D minor and repeatedly falls onto D major; which is quite a different effect from Penny Lane and has more in common with The Beatles’ song I’ll Be Back from A Hard Day’s Night.

The song New, from the 2012 album of the same name features a descending bass with harpsichord block chords. It undoubtedly deliberately harks back to mid to late-Beatles songs such as Penny Lane and Getting Better:

Penny Lane Video

The promotional film for Penny Lane was filmed in the Stratford region of the East End of London in February 1967, with extra filming taking place in Knowle Park in Kent. The appearances by the band are interspersed with shots of the Penny Lane region in Liverpool.

It is one of the first examples of what became known as the music “video” and was directed by Peter Goldmann, a Swedish television director.

It’s interesting to see the differences between the road now and then, at a fifty-three year interval. Cousins the Confectioners is now a tapas bar; Bioletti is still a barbers’ but called Tony Slavin; the newsagents with the Capstan cigarettes logo is now Penny Lane News. The arches at the end of the parade of shops are still very distinctive features.

And Finally:

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