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Initial Reactions to Strawberry Fields / Penny Lane
Remember how the 1955 teenagers reacted to the freakout ending of Johnny B. Goode in Back to the Future?
Here’s a look at how 1967 teenagers in the audience of American Bandstand reacted to their first viewing of the Strawberry Fields / Penny Lane videos. They clearly didn’t know what had hit them!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDG4qfF3Ov4&t=1m59s
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8 Replies
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Went out with the Twist. Bad as the Monkees. Give me a break. They were great videos. Thanks for sharing David. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion. I always liked Dick Clark but never watched American Bandstand. I always considered it dance music show. Which I was not into.
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That Monkees comment really surprised me. I always thought that kids like these were part of the Monkees’ natural audience: people who just wanted formulaic pop songs to dance to, and weren’t interested in following the Beatles down their road of experimentation.
More broadly, I think these interviews make the point that genius is often not recognized in its time by the masses. Frankly, if I had been around then, I probably would have reacted in the same way. Even discovering the Beatles 20 years later, I immediately accepted their earlier songs and took a long time to wrap my mind around the later stuff.
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The Beatles never stayed in one spot musically for very long, always the pioneers. That’s what made the Beatles great, always pushing the envelope, and exploring new frontiers in music, and not getting stuck in a groove. That’s what set them apart from the rest. I suppose you have to continuously break the mold, and even be considered weird, to do great things. Thanks for sharing that David.
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I am trying to remember my opinion in 1967……I believe the video and singles were released around Jan. 1967 when I was 13. I believe that I thought they were going in the wrong direction at the time. The Beatles were no longer the RnR/Love Song band they were previously and nobody likes change that much.
Then I remember those two songs were supposed to be part of Sgt. Peppers but the Beatles were forced to release a double A-side 45 rpm which meant that Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane was released early. Then when Sgt. Peppers was released later on in 1967, I thought of the early release songs and Sgt. Peppers as a part of the same process. And overall my view of the two songs changed when combined with Sgt. Peppers. For example, Strawberry Fields and Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds are somewhat similar. Penny Lane fit in well with his other songs on Sgt. Peppers. So, I began to like the two singles by the time Sgt. Peppers was released……….Only to be surprised by the Beatles again when I Am The Walrus came out as a single. Mike.
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My friend who was in his teens when Sargent Peppers came out always told me the story of when he got the album just released, and invited a bunch of friends over for a celebratory party for a first listen of the new Beatles album, and how he was disappointed by the album at first with sounds of roosters and strange effects. It was so different from anything the Beatles did before, and wasn’t anything anyone expected. But it wasn’t long before it became one of his most treasured albums. I guess that is the aim of art, to break away from expectations and be unpredictable. I heard an artist say, repetition is the death of art.
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Hi Jung;
Their reaction to SP is unusual. I was still 13 when it came out and we had a listening party, too, when the guys I hung out with bought it. The first time we heard it that day turned into about 10 by the time we were done. Maybe by that time I was accustomed to the change in the Beatles’ direction. But, that very first time we listened to it and the extended E chord on the piano hit and lasted about 47 seconds caused us to look at each other and one said, “Whoa, what is this album??” After that night we got together everyday after school to go to a friend’s house and listened to it over and over and over…….well into the evening. Mike.
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Well David, people don’t like change. There was a similar impact when Dylan went electric. Many of his traditional folk fans were dismayed and couldn’t forgive him. However, he came out with the massive hit “Like a Rolling Stone” and I remember at the time it created more discussion in my social circles than any other musically related event of the time. I believe Dylan created his best albums in the mid to late sixties.
As for the Beatles around the same time, I was initially a Rolling Stones fan and didn’t really get into the Beatles until Sgt. Peppers was released. It was the first new album I ever bought (my previous records had mostly been second hand) and we played it over and over. I remember sitting on the lounge room floor listening to it while reading the lyrics on the cover. It was the first album I remember to have lyrics on the cover.
There was also much discussion amongst Beatles’ fans around the time “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” were released as it was a departure from their previous style of music.
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I always liked both from the get go, courtesy of my 2 nd oldest bro, being the Beatles fan, of the later stuff, I liked these songs for the quirkiness of the lyrics, sound, instrumentation at the time when I was I was a kid in the 70s, it’s those things that drew me to these 2 songs, unique and distinctive in their own right for each of them.
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