Penny Lane follows a familiar 8 bar chord structure, and tells a story using verses that alternate with a common refrain. The blend of instruments that comprise this tune is quite unique; bass, piano, flute, horns, and drums with no guitar. These instruments flow together seamlessly, never overpowering each other. While the flute and the bass usually play straight on the beat, both instruments occasionally pick up a melody line that mimics McCartney’s singing. It is quite remarkable that the melody is basically only sung, a testament to the singing talent this group possessed. The vocal harmony could easily fall into a classical category, and is a sharp contrast to the untrained, gritty vocal sound of most rock bands of the time. The beat is kept on the piano, which plays sharp, stinging chords on beats 1, 2, 3, and 4 throughout the entire song. This is interesting, especially because there is not a single time when this chord instrument veers from this form to play a melody line, or respond to McCartney’s vocals or the improvised solos heard from the trumpet and flute. Another unique attribute of this song is the use of wind instruments. The flute harmonizes with the bass throughout the tune, and the horn section plays on the backbeat later in the song, but especially makes its presence known during the refrain, where the flute and trumpet call and respond to each other with impressive improvised solos. The drum line of the song is simple, mostly emphasizing the backbeat with snare or hi-hat hits. All of these elements give the song a light, almost buoyant feeling, as if the song just floats through the air.
Penny Lane is an introspective look into the childhood days of innocence and idealism that was influenced by LSD. McCartney looks back at his childhood as some sort of idyllic paradise; a time when everyone was friendly, reminiscing about the “blue suburban skies”. The mid to late 1960’s were a time of social revolution. Many musicians of the time were largely influenced by the rapidly growing drug culture in the states, and the Beatles were by no means left out of this loop. While earlier tunes had been influenced by massive popularity, and later marijuana which had been introduced to the band by Bob Dylan, Penny Lane has a distinctly acid feel. “The Magical Mystery Tour” is a reference to Ken Kesey and his band of merry pranksters who traveled around the US in a psychedelic bus in the late 60s, protesting the system and turning on anyone they could to acid. They used LSD in almost religious way, recognizing the need for change at all levels of society. Hunter S. Thompson best describes the feeling of the acid scene: “There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning…And that, I think, was the handle-that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting-on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.”
Lee, Martin A., & Schlain, Bruce. Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD.
Grove Press. New York. 1985
