Penny Lane was a single performed by The Beatles and written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It was released in 1967 as a single, together with Strawberry Fields Forever, and was later included on the Magical Mystery Tour album.

The song belongs to The Beatles later period, when their output was more varied and more experimental, and where almost every song was in a different genre, or was hard to classify. Despite this period having much difficult music, "Penny Lane" is a melodic song with a verse chorus verse format, and with nostalgic subject matter. The song is about "Penny Lane", an idyllic suburban street with charming, middle class residents. When I first started listening to The Beatles as a thirteen year old, the song gave me instant nostalgia: quite an accomplishment, considering that as a thirteen year old, I didn't have much material to be nostalgic about, and Liverpool in the 1950s was certainly not a part of it.

Listening to the song twenty years later, I realize another layer of meaning to the song. Like many Beatles songs, it is a work of parody: its musical style and its nostalgic look at suburban life are meant to be ironic. And yet, the song is also sung with real emotion, meant to convey a real fondness for a "simpler time". The song thus manages to be ironic and sincere at the same time, which is part of the ineffable genius of The Beatles.