"Penny Lane" #1 3/18/1967

We present one part of a double-A sided single that was likely the strongest Beatles 45 to date. It contained totally different recollections by Paul and John of their Liverpool childhoods. McCartney, always the more pop-oriented one, based his concept on the Penny Lane bus station where he and John would meet to head downtown. Paul's slice of life was about a barber, a (fictional) banker, a nurse and a fireman among other characters. The version released to some American radio stations (and the one I remember hearing on WABC from New York City) had a trumpet flourish at the end and was unavailable to the public until a 1979 rarities album. Both songs were planned for their upcoming LP but were instead released as a stand-alone 45; they didn't appear on a US album until the end of the year. George Martin said in hindsight they should've put one of the two on an A-side and "When I'm Sixty-Four" (the only other song that was ready) on the B-side. That way, the 45 may have done better than #2 in England, as it was kept out of the top spot by Englebert Humperdinck's "Release Me."