Written by Paul, it was originally intended to be included on the Sgt. Pepper LP, but was instead released as a single to satisfy the record company demand for a new release. John’s original lyrics for “In My Life” included a reference to Penny Lane. Soon after the Beatles recorded “In My Life” in October 1965, Paul mentioned to an interviewer that he wanted to write a song about Penny Lane. A year later, when John wrote “Strawberry Fields Forever”, Paul was motivated to finally write the song. “Penny Lane’ was kind of nostalgic, but it was really a place that John and I knew; it was actually a bus terminus,” Paul said.“I’d get a bus to his house and I’d have to change at Penny Lane, or the same with him to me, so we often hung out at that 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.”The barber shop (“a barber showing photographs / Of every head he’s had the pleasure to have known”) where John, George and Paul got haircuts as children is shown below. The roundabout is shown below.
