please empty your brain below

Lovely stuff.

I wonder whether in renaming the former 'Penny Lane Cakes' the owners had been made aware that John's aunt Mimi - who raised him from a child - could be a bit of a cow?

Allegedly.
Lovely!

But, it's "Full of Fish and finger pies" surely?
Lovely post, perhaps it indicates that Beatles themed tourism isn't the cash cow that many people think it is.

Older people keep forgetting that younger people weren't there when the albums were first released, or when the band broke up, so don't have the same emotional connection.


Great post, thanks DG.
'Of every head he's had the pleasure to have known' is one of my favourite lines in a song.

It captures that post war politeness thgat was so commonplace at the beginning of the sixties; was dying fast in the late sixties; and is totally absent from conversation today.

And thanks for giving me the pleasure of an ear worm - this song is going to be going through my head all day today. Great !
A bit of Trivia

The 'walking' scenes in the video for Penny Lane were filmed in Angel Lane in Stratford.
Lovely post, informative, thanks.

But "non-tack"?
I'd have said "non-tat".

(And my version was auto corrected to yours while writing this!).
@Tor

Yep, and if you watch the film carefully (on youtube)you can see John Lennon walking past Boardmans on the Broadway with a London Routemaster behind.

Apparently the Beatles and film crew stayed in the Salway Arms pub at 31 Angel Lane, long since gone (1972) of course.
The name 'Penny Lane' is most commonly used locally to refer to the area within a 1/4 mile or so from the road junction with the shelter in, rather than the road itself. I'm guessing this is just because it trips off the tongue relatively easily compared to "Heathfield Road" which is the road intersecting on the opposite side. I think this is the sense in which it is used in the song, certainly there is little beyond that end of the lane that seems to fit with the imagery the song evokes of a busy suburban high street.

Indeed the former bus/tram depot nearby was a good way from Penny Lane proper but nevertheless took that name, as I think the retail units that have replaced it do too.
I'm going to be humming it to myself all day now!!
The Beatles epitomised my 1960s childhood - right down to my brother & I being caught jumping on our parents yellow bedspread-covered bed singing "We all live in a yellow sumberine" (sic) at the tops of our pre-school voices!!
(Merseyrail services don't rumble beneath Penny Lane - they're further south, along the river. Sorry.)

Weirdly, I've lived in Scouseland for more than twenty years and I've never been to Penny Lane. The closest I've ever been was a visit to a fire shop on Smithdown Lane. I feel like I should rectify this.
Random Beatles trivia: Penny Lane was also mentioned in Lennon's first draft of the lyrics to In My Life as well as various other Liverpool landmarks.

I know this because the page is on display in the British Library!
"four of fish and finger pies" is the correct lyric. I should have known not to doubt DG. Still sounds like "full" though! 😀
How embarrassing.I always thought the song was about a pier amusement arcade!
I was at Liverpool University from 1977-80. One of the two main groups of halls of residence (the Greenbank site) was opposite the far end of Penny Lane. I was on the Carnatic site, half a mile away by Mossley Hill church.
The University Methodist Society used to meet at Elm Hall Drive Methodist Church, across Smithdown Road from the shelter.
The bus depot was called Prince Alfred Road (the drivers' duty cards, which were clipped to the back of the ticket machines, were coded PAR).
Fair enough for the area to big up its Beatles connection, however the fab four moved away from Liverpool fairly early in their career.
Had a curry in Penny lane 20 years ago, never got around to going back despite visiting Liverpool a couple of times since then, overdue a visit!
Definitely four (rather than full) of fish and finger pie. I'm told it's rather rude...










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