Across Abbey Road · Scene 14 of 21 · Album 9 of 13

14 2:02–2:09 Era 9Magical Mystery Tour 1967

“And I’m trying, With a Little Help from my Friends, to see if the love we make is equal in the end”

The coach pulls away and leaves him in Liverpool, under a street sign everybody knows.

All 21 scenes

The Scene

Scene 14 · Magical Mystery Tour · 7 seconds · three shotsThe coach pulls away, and Mike is standing by the shelter in the middle of a roundabout, playing. Then the street sign itself: PENNY LANE, with him passing behind it. And he walks away from us under the trees, back to the camera, toward a pair of red gates at the end of the road.

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The Story

Magical Mystery Tour was a film shot in September 1967 aboard a yellow and blue coach full of day-trippers, and the American album of that name carries “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” on its second side: the two songs about the Liverpool streets they grew up on. So the coach takes the film home. Mike asked to see the Penny Lane sign, and the walk away under the trees is the shot he loved in the autumn scene, come back in the summer.

Shot by Shot

  1. 1 · The coach pulls away · 2:02–2:05The yellow and blue coach moves off and there he is, playing beside the shelter in the middle of the roundabout.
  2. 2 · Penny Lane · 2:05–2:07The street sign on a brick wall, a barber’s striped pole beside it, and Mike walking past behind.
  3. 3 · Toward the red gates · 2:07–2:09He walks away under the trees, his back to us, the road leading to a pair of red gates.

What to Look For

You can’t miss itThe coach, and the sign: PENNY LANE.

Look closerThe shelter in the middle of the roundabout and the barber’s pole beside the sign are both in the song. And the small red letters on the street sign are the real postcode of the real street.

All 21 scenes