Let me take you down
’Cos I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It’s getting hard to be someone
But it all works out
It doesn’t matter much to me
No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you know you can’t tune it
But it’s all right
That is I think it’s not too bad
Always, no, sometimes, think it’s me
But you know I know when it’s a dream
I think I know I mean a ‘Yes’
But it’s all wrong
That is I think I disagree
Let me take you down
’Cos I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Penny Lane
The other side of the ‘Strawberry Fields’ single–and the other side of the Beatles. This is Paul, writing at his piano in his music room in his new house, taking the same subject of childhood memories, but treating it openly, straightforwardly, cheekily, cheerfully, cleverly–in fact very like Paul himself. No hang-ups here–his memories are fun: blue suburban skies, nice images, nice people.
The musical arrangement is just as clever and rich as ‘Strawberry Fields’, though not as confusing, with the use of top-class trumpets, flutes, and oboes, along with bells and other appropriate noises.
John’s preoccupation with loss, anger and disorientation in his childhood is often put down to the death of his mother when he was fifteen, but Paul also lost his mother, equally tragically, at the age of fourteen–and yet I have never heard him say that it made him angry, depressed, screwed up, or affected his outlook on life and his subsequent behaviour.
In the original version of ‘In My Life’ (page 131), written in John’s hand, there are some unused verses which list places remembered, including Penny Lane. Both John and Paul had Penny Lane in their life–John living very near it and Paul singing in the local church choir at St Barnabas. It was also where Paul’s dad took him and brother Michael to have their hair cut.
Penny Lane is not a lane, as such. ‘Lane’ conjures up the image of a quiet country byway, which it originally was, but the Liverpool version today is a busy, rather featureless thoroughfare. The name is used to refer to the immediate neighbourhood, as well as the road itself. In reality, the only attractive thing about it is the name–which I am sure appealed to Paul. It sounds made-up, like a street in a children’s picture story, and that is how the lyrics read; it becomes a mythical place where the sun always shines with stock characters like a barber, a fireman, a poppy seller. The name Strawberry Fields is equally sylvan and picture-bookish. Weren’t they lucky, having real but fictional-sounding places from their childhood.
The places mentioned in Penny Lane are on the whole genuine–there was a barber, a fire station, a roundabout–but the little additions, like the fireman with an hourglass in his pocket, sound more surreal. We also have pouring rain with blue skies, which sounds rather unlikely. So Paul could do opposites as well as John. And the barber did not have photographs of every head ‘he’s had the pleasure to know’–but photos of different hairstyles. Lyrical licence.
There are a couple of sexual innuendos that were put in, so Paul said, to amuse the smuttier Liverpool teenagers. ‘Finger pie’ was a local term, referring to the female genitalia area, and there is slight smirk around the word ‘machine’ and keeping it clean. There is also a suggestion that the fireman has some dodgy habits. All good clean schoolboy fun.
The narrative structure of the lyrics is lightly done. There is a slight development, in that we go back to the barber, fireman and the banker, but seen from an outside observer, telling us about it in the third person. There is no I, no first-person memories. ‘Meanwhile back’ is an amusing device, making it clear it is a story, a fictional, stylized childhood place. The pretty nurse selling poppies feels she is in a play–she is anyway. He could have gone on to suggest we are all in a play, as John and George might have done, but avoided it.
In the USA, where there is no tradition of artificial poppies being sold to commemorate the 1918 Armistice, there was some consternation when fans misheard the words and wondered why the nurse was selling puppies from a tray.
The manuscript of ‘Penny Lane’ has turned up in several bits and pieces, now owned by different collectors. In both, Paul has written ‘In Penny Lane’ but dropped the ‘In’ when he came to sing it. They contain a few odd lines never used, such as one about the barber: ‘It was easy not to go–he was very slow’. A good line, so it’s surprising it wasn’t used.
Sheet music for ‘Penny Lane’, on the reverse of ‘Strawberry Fields’ single, January 1967.
Penny Lane–there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he’s had the pleasure to know
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello
On the corner is a banker with a motorcar
The little children laugh at him behind his back
And the banker never wears a mac
In the pouring rain…
Very strange
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back
In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen.
He likes to keep his fire engine clean
It’s a clean machine
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back
Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she’s in a play
She is anyway
Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
Then the fireman rushes in
From the pouring rain…
Very strange
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies…
Penny Lane.