(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please refer down below)
The Beatles - "Penny Lane"
Hit Number 1: March 18, 1967
Stay at Number 1: 1 Week
When the rest of the country got weird, so did the Beatles. 1967 marked the end of the Beatles "early" era, the time where they were releasing their famed rock and roll songs, and the lyrics didn't seem like they were taking you on some massive drug trip. Their later era was when they became a part of the psychedelic movement, and they became major driving forces behind the psychedelic era. Well, "Penny Lane" doesn't exactly belong in either era in my opinion. It's the perfect song to bridge the gap between the Beatles' two different eras.
Penny Lane is actually a real place, and it's a street located in Mossley Hill, a suburb of Liverpool. The name is also given to the general area around its junction with Smithdown Road and Allerton Road, and to the roundabout at Smithdown Place, where a major bus terminus was located. That roundabout was a frequent stopping place for John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison while they were growing up in the area. In the early years of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership, that roundabout, and the whole Penny Lane area, became a familiar element to them. It's primarily McCartney's song, and in it, he reflects on all the different things he remembered seeing at Penny Lane as he was growing up.
In 1965, Lennon had written a song called "In My Life" that originally referenced Penny Lane in one of the lyrics. (Surprisingly, "In My Life" didn't seem to chart. It's a 9 anyway) After the Beatles recorded it, McCartney said in an interview that he wanted to write a song about Penny Lane. It was only a year after that, that McCartney began writing "Penny Lane" after he was presented with "Strawberry Fields Forever", a song Lennon had wrote that would eventually share an A-Side with "Penny Lane". (It made it to #8 on the Hot 100. It's a 4) All the things that you hear about in "Penny Lane" were all there in real life too. The bank, the fire station, the roundabout; those are all real places that McCartney was telling us about. He said in an interview in 1970 that it was "reliving his childhood".
Now, there are some things going on in "Penny Lane" that don't make any freaking sense. First the lyrics "there beneath the blue suburban skies" suggests that it's summer, while there is also a nurse selling poppies from a tray, which is something usually done on Remembrance Day. (November 11) It's also apparently sunny yet rainy at the same time, since the fireman rushes in from the "pouring rain". There's also some British slang in the song, with the lyric "four of fish and finger pie". "Four of fish" means four-pennyworth of fish and chips, while "finger pie" is sexual slang for fingering. The song makes sense, but at the same time makes no sense at all. But it doesn't have to.
All things considered, "Penny Lane" is one of the more important Beatles records, and it sparked them into a new era. McCartney sings about it like it's the happiest place on Earth, and the general feel of the song gives off nothing but happy vibes. There's a piccolo trumpet solo that's a goofy little throw-in to add to the song's lighthearted nature, and that chorus is addicting sing-along material. It's the kind of chorus that everyone knows, and it's nearly impossible to resist singing along to it. While "Strawberry Fields Forever" is way too complicated and strange, "Penny Lane" is addicting and strange. And I love everything about that.
Of course, it's only natural that after the success of "Penny Lane", the real Penny Lane would become a popular tourist attraction. From what I've seen, the barber shop still stands today, and the street has all kinds of Beatles memorabilia lining up and down it. After writing about the song and the place, it's a place I might have to go visit myself. Let's add that to the bucket list.
GRADE: 9/10
SONGS REFERENCED:
The Beatles - "In My Life"
The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever"
MY INSPIRATION / MORE INFORMATION:
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