Macro Mondays – Beatles: Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields

Macro Monday theme:- Beatles/ Beetles

 

I went for the 1967 double A side of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.

 

George Martin later regretted not including the two songs on The Beatles' Sgt Pepper album.

 

The only reason that Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane didn't go onto the new album was a feeling that if we issued a single, it shouldn't go onto an album. That was a crazy idea, and I'm afraid I was partly responsible. It's nonsense these days, but in those days, it was an aspect that we'd try to give the public value for money.

 

The idea of a double A side came from me and Brian, really. Brian was desperate to recover popularity, and so we wanted to make sure that we had a marvellous seller. He came to me and said, 'I must have a really great single. What have you got?' I said, 'Well, I've got three tracks - and two of them are the best tracks they've ever made. We could put the two together and make a smashing single.' We did, and it was a smashing single - but it was also a dreadful mistake. We would have sold far more and got higher up in the charts if we had issued one of those with, say, When I'm Sixty-Four on the back

 

Done