The Beatles – Penny Lane

Not in my favorites, but worth to talk about.

mundane and relatively unspecial, the song proved only Guitar Weeps and Tomorrow Never Knows are their truly good songs. 70/100

Full explanation: Though considered one of their best songs by most, the problem with Penny Lane is that the singer tries to convey the laid back nature of their town, but the only driving force is the trumpet. It does show the hustle and the bustle of the town, but the repeating theme of “Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes” gets dull. The only interesting thing in the melody is the swing pattern and the occasional B flat that pops up in a relatively safe song. The melody floats up and down with a predictable scale and the aforementioned B flat is honestly only the scale raised up by a step (G A B A G F# G F# E D C… converted into A Bb C Bc A Bb C Bc A G F…). I know it’s unfair to directly compare songs, but I think it’s necessary in this case to show my precise taste. I bring up the arguably equally laid back song, “She Was Mine” by AJ Rafael (which I would give a perfect score to).

I’ll admit that on the surface the two songs seem equally mundane, but the grace notes and the almost jazz-like chords keep the song interesting. Penny Lane doesn’t have a drum to keep things going, and the mood of the city is nostalgic, but AJ Rafael arguably keeps things far more interesting with the smartly laid repetition “love has no distance baby, [b]love, love[/b] has no distance baby, [b]no, not[/b] when it comes to you and me”, while The Beatles are unfortunately thrown into a “Penny Lane is….” followed by description of what is happening in the town. If we try to imitate the way they’re singing their lyrics, you’ll find the Beatles are not geniuses (the syllables dwindle down but main theme is split into technically three lines, and the big line “blue suburban skies” is sung with the same meaningfulness as the rest of the chorus)

Penny Lane,
is in my ears
and in my eyes
(trumpet plays)
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
(trumpet plays again)

while AJ Rafael keeps things interesting (with only the last three lines the same length to stress the message of his song), even if he isn’t a master of lyrics either:

(drum plays)
No matter where you go,
I won’t be very far
Cause in my head I’ll be right there where you are
Cause love has no distance baby
Love,

love has no distance baby
No,

not when it comes to you and me

“But wait!” you say, “She Was Mine is your severe bias, your guilty pleasure. Everyone else says Penny Lane is a really good song… perhaps compare it to something we can think is… better?”

“Very well,” I respond, “How about we look at this *case*– pun intended– with Detective Detective by Static-P?” (A song I consider somewhat mediocre, but still was better than 7 other songs in a random shuffle)

As with my song review, it’s clear that DD has good alliteration that keeps things from being boring, and the mystery is unveiled step by step — he is kidnapped, the two men are wearing suits, then he gets to the crime scene, present the evidence, aha, it’s his limo, boom now he knows the culprit and resolves the problem. But Penny Lane merely presents the scene with merely the sky and the fireman, with no drive or force to the story. It’s not precisely “relaxing” either, since the trumpet provides just sufficient force to represent the hustle and bustle of the city.

“Unfair,” you might respond, “DD heavily resembles the J-rock genre you hear and it’s obviously going to be more exciting than Penny Lane. Choose a calmer song!”

“Alright,” I say, “Then let us take a look at the ingenious Love song/non love song duet.” It’s very clear that the two messages complement and even argue with each other to talk about their bittersweet journeys. It might seem the two songs split apart are each weaker than Penny Lane, but even this is not completely true. A Love Song From Paris alludes to Champs-Elysees, similar to Penny Lane’s allusions, but I find the rhythm much more of a breather with “Breaking bread, sipping wine meant for two”. I love the fact that he says “we’d fool this old town”, and how even he laments “the Eiffel’s a joke and the punchline is me”.

Dodie, while a calmer voice, arguably is more passionate, with the exclamation “you fool, how dare you trust fate, she’s not that kind!” and her bitter ending “Shut it down, Get it into your brain, This will all just end in flames”. Each of these songs convey an emotion that I simply don’t see in Penny Lane, and the duet further proves the two’s fantastic ability to write melodies, with the two overlapping and adding to each other. I’ll admit, it gets a little bit chaos compared to the quaint little Penny Lane, but it holds infinite repeat value while Penny Lane holds back no subtleties to listen to or melodies contrasting against each other.