‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’: How Liverpool brought out the best in John Lennon
The Beatles didn’t have a secret. They’re probably the first band to reach global fame without having a secret behind the success. It was more a case of everything aligning perfectly as their sweet-sounding music was welcomed by a world desperate for it. The moment the songwriting know-how of the Fab Four culminated and presented to the people, there was only ever going to be one outcome.
“The Beatles were such a finite thing,” said Michael D’Addario of The Lemon Twigs. As lovers of music from the ‘60s, many of those early influences can be heard in what they went on to make; however, they are well aware that there was a lot more to The Beatles’ success than just their sound. “I wouldn’t wanna model my career after them because it’s such a moment in time and combustible.”
Ozzy Osbourne relives the sentiment frequently as he recalls how miserable everyone was in post-war Britain and how much The Beatles improved everyone’s quality of life. “My son says to me, Dad, I like the Beatles, but why do you go so crazy?” He said, “The only way I can describe it, is like this, ‘Imagine you go to bed today and the world is black and white and then you wake up, and everything’s in colour. That’s what it was like!’ That’s the profound effect it had on me.”
People all over the world shared this sentiment, and more so than anything, it was the beautiful songwriting ability displayed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr that had this profound effect on people. We are now in a position where we can look back on The Beatles’ discography and scrutinise it, picking out their strengths and weaknesses and working out what subjects each member was best at writing about.
One thing that is clear about John Lennon when you do this is that he was at his creative best when he was thinking about home in Liverpool. Two tracks that are the band’s most famous and see Lennon at his creative peak are ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, tracks that allow him to be innovative but have his hometown at their centre.
Lennon was always an advocate for the fact that his best songs come from when he is the most honest with himself and the listener. “I meant it, it’s real,” he said when talking about why he liked the track ‘Help’ so much, “The lyric is as good now as it was then; it’s no different, you know… It was just me singing ‘Help’, and I meant it, you know.”
Lennon certainly has a point that his more honest and raw-sounding songs are some of his best. This is why so many of the tracks he made during his solo career are memorable, as he had complete free reign to talk about whatever subject matter he wanted, which meant laying his soul bare on the likes of ‘Imagine’ and ‘Mother’.
When we consider the songs he wrote for The Beatles, it could be argued that many of his most relatable emotions came from before he achieved fame. Granted, even after The Beatles became the megastars that they did, they were still human, with real-life emotions that we could all still relate to; however, what they were going through was so alien that any attempt at authenticity might have often been difficult to connect with.
When Lennon wrote about home, though, that’s when his lyrics and his emotions were easiest to connect with. His memories of Liverpool brought out the best in Lennon, which can be heard on both ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’.
When talking about the track ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, John Lennon described it as “One of the few trues songs I ever wrote,” he said, saying that he “Really wrote from experience and not projecting myself into a situation and writing a nice story about it.” ‘Penny Lane’ also saw Lennon reflect on his home as he wrote about the barber where he used to get his hair cut.
These two songs are some of the band’s most well-regarded as they see John Lennon talk about his home and engage with his honest side in a way that the public at large could connect with. While he was great at writing songs that touched upon a number of subject matters, there is no denying that Liverpool brought out the best in John Lennon.
