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| I do not own this picture. |
Penny Lane is a song that has stood the test of time. It was released about 50 years ago, in 1967, yet most people are still able to hum the tune, sing the chorus, or, if you're like me, you can singlehandedly perform the whole piece- the trumpet, piccolo, flugelhorn and all, with just one, solo voice... But where is Penny Lane exactly?
The street 'Penny Lane is a residential area in Liverpool near the Liverpool College sports fields and over the train tracks, but the Penny Lane that The Beatles were referring to in the song is the Allerton/Smithdown Road area where...
'In 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...'
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| Tony Slavin, June 2017. |
When The Beatles knew this barber shop, it was called 'Boletti's,' and just like every barber, he had pictures of different styles of haircuts to choose from. He didn't actually have a photo gallery of everyone he knew, that would be quite odd. Boletti's was sold by the family and is now called 'Tony Slavin,' they still encourage people to 'stop in and say hello' as they know many tourists come to see where The Beatles got their hair cuts. They pride themselves on being the 'Original Penny Lane Barber Shop' that The Beatles sang about in 1967.
Alfred Lennon, John's father, went to boarding school at Liverpool Blue Coat School in 1924 where they had many uniform regulations. One of them being the haircut, every boy was taken to Boletti's to get their hair cut in accordance with the rules. Years later, Alf took John at the age of five to Boletti's to get his first hair cut.
Jim McCartney also brought his sons Paul and Michael to Boletti's to receive hair cuts in 1956, he also had strict rules for his son's hair. A haircut to Jim McCartney meant short sides and back with a side parting. But it was around this time in the mid-50's when Boletti hired a young barber, Andre, who was more 'hip.' All of the young boys wanted Andre do give them a 'Crew Cut' or the 'Tony Curtis.' Everyone hoped that it would be Andre cutting their hair, but the most unlucky of boys got Boletti's 80 year old father, who did not go for the trendy looks and gave a very traditional hair cut. Paul and Michael would have no doubt been like the other lads, crossing their fingers on a Saturday morning for Andre to cut their hair, much to Jim's distaste.
George Harrison was also said to have his hair cut here.
Imagine, cutting the hair of boys whose hair would later make them an icon.
'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...'
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| Penny Lane Surgery, June 2017. |
This is now 'Penny Lane Surgery,' a doctor's office that serves the community, but it used to be one of the three or four banks in this area that people chose from in the 50's and 60's, and is right on the corner of the strip where Boletti's was located.
Paul McCartney admitted the the banker himself wasn't real, saying, 'There was a bank on the corner so I imagined the banker - it was not a real person - and his slightly dubious habits and the little children laughing at him, and the pouring rain' (Paul McCartney in Many Years From Now, B. Miles).
'Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes. There beneath the blue suburban skies, I sit and meanwhile back...'
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| Penny Lane, June 2017. |
'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...'
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| Allerton Community Fire Station, June 2017. |
Now if you walk down Penny Lane and get to the central area, where the places mentioned above are, you won't see the fire station. It's actually a bit down the road, where Rose Lane meets Mather Avenue.
'The fire station was a bit of a poetic license; there's a fire station about half a mile down the road, not actually in Penny Lane, but we needed a third verse so we took that and I was very pleased with the line 'It's a clean machine.' I still like that phrase, you occasionally hit a lucky little phrase and it becomes more than a phrase. So the banker and the barber shop and the fire station were all real locations' (Paul McCartney in Many Years From Now, B. Miles).
'Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes. A four of fish and finger pies in summer...'
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| Penny Lane Fish and Chips, June 2017. |
'Four of fish' means a portion of fish and chips costing four (old) pence. I was told by an old man in a pub that the young Beatles would not have gotten the portion of fish and chips for four pence, a normal portion during that time was 'a six,' his father ran a chip shop when he was younger. Therefore, the term 'four of fish' was more of Paul's poetic license using the repetitive 'f' sounds to create alliteration.
'Finger pies,' Paul said, was 'a bit of dirt for the boys back home,' it's Liverpudlian schoolboy slang for... well... I'll let you look that one up yourself.
'Meanwhile back, behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout...'
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| Penny Lane Bus Shelter, June 2017. |
This is the incredibly ordinary, infamous bus shelter where, 'I'd get a bus to his [John's] house and I'd have to change at Penny Lane, or the same with him to me, so we often hung out at the 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' (Paul McCartney interview by S. Harper).
Someone in the 1980's attempted to make the top floor 'Sgt. Pepper's Bistro,' but the plan didn't work out and it is now, just as it was before, simply a bus shelter.
'The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray. And though she feels as if she's in a play, she is anyway...'
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| Beth Davidson (left), the inspiration for this verse. I do not own this photo. |
This verse is said to have been John Lennon's contribution to the song, as he was the one who knew the 'pretty nurse,' Beth Davidson. The story goes, that Stan Williams, a school mate of John's was in Penny Lane to get a haircut from Boletti's, and stopped to have a conversation with his friend Beth, who was a nurse cadet selling Poppies for Armistice Day. John and his friend Pete Shotton, went up to talk to them and the rest was history.
The part about her 'feeling as if she was in a play,' was inspired by her love of acting. Her father even built her a stage in their back garden where she would perform. She was 'in a play... anyway' because being a nurse cadet was her 'role' for the day.
She later went on to marry John's childhood best friend, Pete Shotton.
'Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes...'
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| A painted Penny Lane street sign, June 2017. |
After the song was released in 1967, people began to steal the Penny Lane street signs due to the song's popularity. The city then had to begin painting the signs on the walls instead.
'There, beneath the blue suburban skies...'
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| The 'Penny Lane Gate' at Penny Lane Community Center, June 2017. |
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| The 'Beatles Wonderwall' at Penny Lane Community Center, June 2017. |
Penny Lane used to be a working-class area, it still is, but not as much. It is very touristy, I walk through this area quite a bit, and not once do I not see someone taking pictures or on a Beatles tour. Even so, it's beautiful. The fact that it's touristy just goes to show you how influential this song is, fifty years after its release. Penny Lane will remain in the ears and eyes of people around the world for years to come.
Though it's slightly different now than it was when The Beatles knew it, there is no doubt in my mind that they would instantly recognize their old stomping grounds,
'Penny Lane.'
With love, from me, to you,
Stephanie Hernandez
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