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BBC Songs of Praise has just run an episode based on the top 20 School Assembly songs. And Parchment's Light Up the Fire comes in at number 8! Still riding high.
The programme features the song twice, if you listen carefully. There is a complete rendition of the "colours of day" version of the song. That is three verses without the gospelly rave at the end of Parchment's original version. Not all the top 20 songs were performed.
I have finally added Lovely Touching, the third track on Hollywood Sunset, to our "Morning Songs" collection.
That's after quite a lot of relistening - and realising that I, for one, have never understood one of Parchment's strangest songs.
Lovely Touching was one of the deeply ambiguous songs that led to Hollywood Sunset being blacklisted by the Christian press, along with Larry Norman's So Long Ago the Garden. You can read about the controversy here.
One of our commentators referred to at as "mystical". It is also very sensual. I was never a fan. It was the slow track sandwiched between the fast-paced Hard Road and the folky (and also mystical) Dobbie's Song.
Now, 50 years later, it's a great listen - an acid folk classic and it's surprising it hasn't found its way onto compilations, as Son of God has. After all, the lyrics could mean anything.
So before adding it to Morning Songs I listened carefully and reexamined the lyrics. How sensual is it? Is it about sex? John Pac clearly did not think so. He included it third on Kingsway's Simply Parchment collection, from which the popular Zip Bam Boo was excluded as too irreverent.
The song seems to have three layers of symbolism - of nature, of spirituality and of sensuality. There's powerful symbolism of morning touching the night "Morning meets the night, oh what a sight. And it's lovely touching". So really, definitely, a morning song.
But which morning?
A morning after a night of intimacy? That is how most people would hear it. "Eternity's arms embrace You...to draw towards eternal bliss." There is powerful sensuality throughout the song "Eternal lips, a holy kiss." "They'll take each other's hand and then they'll understand. That it's lovely touching."
That capital "Y" is interesting and is on the lyric sheet of Simply Parchment. Guess what? On the original Hollywood Sunset sleeve it's a lower case "y". So, in including it on Simply Parchment, John Pac sought to spiritualise it, by making it refer to Jesus.
So John must have been thinking of a morning involving Jesus.
Gethsemane? Rerences to "not singing songs but watching". But not an immediately happy ending. It doesn't fit.
Easter Morning? A time of bliss. But there was no watching - simply women who got up early to attend a grave. Ah yes, there were angels watching. It's just that the symbolism doesn't quite match the story.
My guess is that the song was written by Keith Rycroft, who left the band before the publication of the album and returned to Liverpool, becoming a Quaker. Someone steeped in spiritual mysticism.
And I looked at one other morning. The morning of Pentecost. "It is but 9am in the morning."
And my mind went back 50 years to the early 70s. When the charismatic movement erupted and people were trying to emulate Pentecost. There would be all night prayer meetings and lots of hand-holding and hugging. "Waiting for the break of day."
As it happens, a year or two later, I wrote a poem satirising this behaviour. It began:
"Let's have a pentecost, they said/ Let's all gather in the place of power/hold hands together and wait/for the sounds of rushing mighty wind/and tongues of electifying fire". I'll spare you the rest of my student poetry. But there it is: "hold hands together".
It wasn't just the charismatic movement of course. There were other spiritual movements seeking similar experience .
Nowadays all that touching and handholding would raise all sorts of safeguarding issues. Then, it was a feature of the charismatic movement - and did lead some people down dark byways. It also led to many youngsters forming deep personal relationships.
Here are those full lyrics:
Morning's in the sky and there's no question why
Not singing songs but watching
Morning meets the night, oh what a sight
And it's lovely touching
Eternity's arms embrace you
Eternal lips, a holy kiss
Spheres they move by one thought
To draw towards eternal bliss
Waiting for the break of day
When all things will rise and play
Not singing songs but watching
They'll take each others hand
And then they'll understand
That it's lovely touching
Eternal arms embrace you
Eternal lips, a holy kiss
Spheres they move by one thought
To draw towards eternal bliss
Morning's in the sky and there's no question why
Not singing songs but watching
Morning meets the night, oh what a sight
And it's lovely touching
And it's lovely touching (repeated seven times).
So spiritual, mystical, sensual, yes - but perhaps also a description of a real event? I hope that doesn't demystify a great song too much. And I could yet be wrong.
For 2025, we have created, on Youtube, an Easter playlist "from the Parchment family".
The songs are from Parchment and their Jesus Music contemporaries, notably Graham Kendrick, Garth Hewitt Second Chapter of Acts and Cliff Richard. There is the extraordinary rendition of Kendrick's Sweet Flame from Leicester-based Aslan and quite a lot from another contemporary, but from a different scene, Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span, who has recorded many classic hymns with the Carnival Band. Some notable contemporaries are largely absent - surprisingly they did not write Easter songs that we can find.
There are also songs from River, successor band to Parchment, written by Sue McClellan.
There is one new upload with new visuals and there are tracks from all of Parchment's four published albums,
Roughly speaking, the songs tell the Easter story in two cycles, each headed by a track from Hollywood Sunset, with its gorgeous sunset artwork. And that in turn has inspired the above album cover. Sadly, the CD does not really exist - it's AI.
Here is this year's Christmas playlist. 40 great Christmas songs with a folky feel in the spirit of Parchment. Surprisingly, Parchment never wrote any Christmas songs although they did release a version of "Working Man", which was written by their predecessors, Trinity Folk, However River, the singing group brought together 30 years later by Sue McClellan, sang lots of Christmas related songs and most of them are in this collection, now, in videos which we have made.
This includes a new video, mashing up River's Christus Natus with Parchment's Light of the World. As there are few photos either from River or from Parchment's Shamblejam period, we have used AI to generate more images.
Over the course of this year we've posted several new videos, using some stunning film and photos, and these lead off the playlist.
They include a mash up of both recorded versions of Light Up the Fire, also known, of course as "Colours of Day".
There is a song from Sue McClellan's turn of the century group River. Their second album was called Rise Like the Sun but does not, actually contain, any morning songs that I could identify. It does have terrific watercolour artwork which mirrors the astonishing sunset on Parchment's Hollywood Sunset. (More on the "River parallels" later perhaps). The song itself was recorded on their first album Praise Him in the Streets.
"Morning Sky" from Shamblejam could not be missed, nor could the second track on Light Up the Fire, "Till the Morning Comes".
We have omitted other songs which refer to the morning, such as "You are my morning", the single from Hollywood Sunset, because we don't think they are actually about the morning.
It's a great watch for a lazy weekend breakfast and alongside our new videos there are plenty of classics. Ideas for additions welcome!
This terrific uptempo Christmas song is from River's first album, Praise Him in the Streets, published some time around the turn of the century.
In this short song, Sue McLellan combines River's choral skills with the tempo and melody that are typical of her song-writing. Enjoy the song and may we wish you a very joyful Christmas 2022.
The photo is from River performing live in 2004 with Sue closest to the camera.
This autumn was, incredibly, the 50th anniversary of the release of the single Light Up the Fire. On the Parchment Tribute site Facebook page, we asked for memories of the release. The memories that were shared included some from people closely associated with the band. Here are their stories:
Dixie Dean, who worked with the band, said: "Seems like another lifetime ago. Still remember my first trip out with the band in the trusty Transit van they had. We went down the M6 and M1 and exited around Newport Pagnell. I remember not judging the speed too well on reaching the roundabout and feeling like we were on 2 wheels!"
Brian said: "I remember Keith Rycroft singing it to me for the first time, in a church hall in Liverpool!"
He went on: "He did it solo just for me! We were in The Gospel Messengers together for some years, but this occasion was in preparation for a mixed-media production in our church. These led into the formation of 'Roundabout Releases' in Liverpool with Ian Sparks and Alan Godson."
Steve said: "Trinity Folk including John & Sue were forerunners of Parchment while Keith was in Dovetail. My brother once guested on bongos when TF(Trinity Folk) supported Larry Norman in Liverpool in early 1972"
I have been working, in my mind, on a theory for some time that Listen, Listen by the late great Sandy Denny was a response to the Light Up the Fire album. The truth is even stranger.
The song is about a messianic individual, a mediaeval traveller of some kind, a Pied Piper or a recruiter for the Crusades.
Its chorus goes: "Listen, listen to him do,
He is the one who is for you.
Listen, they say,
He'll come and take us all away."
One verse states: "I am a traveller by trade,
I only have what I have made.
A fortune teller too they say,
And I can take you all away."
It was released as a single in September 1972 as the lead single from her solo album Sandy.
Significantly its musical accompaniment is heavy with mandolin, just like Light Up the Fire. Indeed it's the closest comparison I have ever found to tracks like When the Morning Comes and Roundabout. (Click on header for more....)
Something a little different today - we have found an amazing audio recording of the Rez Band (Resurrection Band), sometimes called the first Christian metal band, speaking at the Greenbelt festival in 1984.
We've put it up in Youtube with a video, sandwiched by their song Skyline, and here it is.
The Rez Band are interesting, not just for being early metallers, but because they emerged directly from the Jesus People movement of the early 70s. The commune they were involved with still exists in Chicago as Jesus People USA and still does social support and outreach work in a deprived part of the city. (click heading for more....)
We thought it would be timely to share this great track from Parchment's unreleased third album at a time when the coronavirus is causing unusual hardship in the world. The song was written nearly hundred years ago by "Blind" Alfred Reed and reflected the hard economic times in the inter-war years. Most likely Parchment found it through Ry Cooder's version - but as so often the Parchment version is nothing like other renditions - it's got its own exuberance and passion! This is one of the few recordings to highlight the electric guitar work of Jeff Crow and indicates what could have happened if the band had found a level of commercial success in the mid-70s. The late John Pac was very opposed to releasing the "lost" third album and he was right. It's an interesting collection of songs and recordings - and this is one of the most notable - but did not hang together as an album release. It also had no Christian content - meaning it would have been hard to pitch it to the bands' Christian base. It needed more work and the development of a couple of stand-out tracks. Two tracks, Denomination Blues and Parchment's own People and Places were re-recorded for later albums.
A few years ago we contacted Pete Wildman who had played with Trinity Folk and continued to make music. Pete was in India at the time and didn't reply - but seems to have got the message as he has now shared his own account of Trinity Folk and the origins of Parchment.
A big thanks to local radio journalist Wayne Clarke for linking us to a 2004 local radio interview, recorded, maybe, in Liverpool,
Wayne managed to get Sue, John and Keith Rycroft all on the air together for the first and last time in decades to mark the release of the Simply...ParchmentCD set.
You can find the full interview, 46 minutes of talk and songs, by following the link to Wayne's blog here:
The first revelation was that Keith Rycroft came from a group called Gospel Messengers, not Trinity Folk. And he is now a Quaker, he stated.
Both John and Keith named Lovely Touching, from Hollywood Sunset, as one of their favourite songs.
The glorious You Were on My Mind was described as "rubbish" by one of them. It never made it to an album.
And, yes, we were correct in thinking they inspired Bono of U2. It's in his autobiography - supposedly.
Sue McClellan sang live when they appeared on Top of the Pops.
If you listen carefully to the end of the Light Up the Fire album you might hear the line "get your granny off the table." (I have never heard this...)
New Horizon Vision 1979 Producer: Sue McClellan Pilgrim PLM453 New Horizon Sometimes Alleluia1977Producer: Sue McClellan Pilgrim PLM426
There was only one reason New Horizon were not recorded on the Grapevine label. They did not write original material.
They were a Scottish singing group, similar to Grapevine's Unity.
Sue McClellan's first outing with them was in 1977 when they produced highly listenable Sometimes Alleluia. But it was in 1979 they produced an album that should not be languishing in the obscurity of Ebay.
It was the title that made me chance a few pounds on Ebay for this album. It could only be a cover of Parchment's Vision, a song found on Rehearsal for Reunion and which later became the opening track of the Simply...Parchment CD. What I received was an album that was worth ten times what I paid.
The band offers layers of Scottish harmony, electric guitar and flute. A lot of flute. All deployed towards the performance of a collection of mostly obscure Christian songs. Not praise songs, proper songs. There are two tracks by Grapevine songsmiths Stewart and Kyle. There are songs that are so obscure I struggled to work out who might have performed them originally. There is a track that Unity also performed, suggesting it might be a Scottish song. There is something by Kevin Gould. And, yes, there is a rendition of Sue McClellan's Vision.
There is also the eponymous New Horizons, a song by the Moody Blues (another personal favourite - but hey, you only strike the jackpot once in a lifetime.)
Then on side 2 there was a song with the most amazing minor key melody. I was convinced I could place it - but I could not until I realised it was a little known song by the late Scottish pop/rock singer Jerry Rafferty. I put it on Youtube so you can hear it too. Do not listen to it on your own - as it will only make you weep. Rafferty was not a gospel artist - but he used the story of The Ark to produce a song of amazing profundity and relevance to the world of the 2010s that he, sadly, did not live to see.
* The man behind New Horizon was a Scottish musician called Ian Watson. He continued to be an influential figure in Scottish gospel music, directing an Annual Praise Gathering. I wonder if the choice of music for those events was equally eclectic.
For Christmas 2015 here is the song Vision, first recorded by Parchment on Rehearsal for a Reunion, sung by the Scottish group New Horizon on an album titled Vision and produced by Sue McClellan of Parchment. Vision is almost a Christmas song - technically it's an advent song, I think.
If you think this track is okay, you should stand by for something stunning from this album. More in 2016...
There are surprisingly few recorded covers of Parchment songs other than Light Up the Fire. But there are some ... and they span more than 30 years.
Parchment were very influential in the 1970s CCM scene - but the songs that were copied by other artists, other than Light Up the Fire, tended to be songs that were not their own, like Denomination Blues or Pack Up Your Sorrows.
Here is what I have found:
Better than Yesterday - Aslan, Paws for Thought 1976. Original on Light Up the Fire .
Ship Out on the Ocean - Mary McKee Meanings of My Life 1977 (Pilgrim). Original on Light Up the Fire. Vision- New Horizon Vision 1979 (Pilgrim) Original on Rehearsal for a Reunion. Corners of My Life - Birch Book Tomorrow's Sun Will Rise the Same 2010. Original on Shamblejam
Does anyone know of any more? More on New Horizon soon...
Mary Mckee is a sweet-voiced singer of country songs from Northern Ireland and mostly performed with a band called The Genesis (not the Phil Collins Genesis).
She made a solo album with the Pilgrim label in 1977 and the production team was provided by Parchment - as was the backing music.
So her album Meanings of My Life, features contributions by John Pac, Sue McClellan and Pete Yates-Round.
On the album is a cover of a Parchment song, the Keith Rycroft written, Ship Out on the Ocean, which features on the Light Up the Fire album.
The Light Up the Fire version is quite lavish - so it's intriguing to see the band working on a more stripped down version with McKee. Pete Yates-Round's guitar work is sublime.
And this raises an interesting question: is it a cover of the song by Mary McKee - or is it in truth a remake of the song by Parchment working with Mary McKee?
Just to get you in a seasonal mood for Christmas here's half a dozen songs from the "Parchment family", including some of the special Christmas videos we've made in the last few years:
And, as a stocking filler, we've created a Parchment Christmas station on Pandora.com
here.
You won't get much Parchment on the station - being Pandora the sounds range widely - but we've tried to exclude Phil Collins and some of the crooners. Run it in the background, you'll hear some gems, like this Appalachian Christmas song
If you have trouble getting access to Pandora because you're not in the USA, use www.hola.org
John Pantry Live with Fresh Air. Not Guilty. 1983Executive producer: John Pac. Producer: John Pantry. Pilgrim America RO3984
After releasing the studio album, Fresh Air, John Pantry and Fresh Air went on tour to the States. Except that not all Fresh Air went. The cover sleeve, here, shows the picture of the full line-up, the same picture that was used on the studio album with Sue McClellan, formerly of Parchment, and the singer songwriter Phil Potter. But neither Sue McClellan nor Phil Potter is credited on this live album nor do they appear on the photos of the US tour on the rear of the album.
So although Sue McC's photo appears on the album, it seems none of her work does.
John Pac and Pilgrim America used a format that was proving successful for Brits in this period - take a star artist, tour the USA and then release a live album, which knits together their greatest hits. It seemed to work - think Wings Over America or Peter Gabriel's smash hit live album. You can see from the sleeve photos that Pilgrim put some investment into the stage sets.
The tour was promoting Pantry's 1981 album Hot Coals. You can find out more about the album here.
And it seemed to work for the two John Ps. This is a great album, especially if you are a fan of John Pantry. But the Fresh Air project was clearly petering out. The three remaining members feature merely as backing singers.
There's a dedication to "Eric and Sue and all our friends at St Andrew's."
Fresh Air. Fresh Air. 1982 Producer: John Pantry. Marshalls MRT1006
Some time ago we were told that, after Parchment and after the Grapevine label, Sue McClellan went to work on some Christian super-group project.
Here it is - Fresh Air - and here is an amazing picture of Sue McClellan, second from right, showing her youth as an 80s new wave rock chick.
Fresh Air was fronted by Parchment album producer John Pantry, second from left, by then an established and very successful Christian solo artist.
Disappointingly Sue didn't contribute any of the songs on this album - whilst John wrote and sang most of them. So it doesn't really count as the missing link between Parchment and River.
The band seems to have formed as a vocal band, using others to contribute the backing music. If you can find the album, buy it for curiosity value. You get to hear Sue McC singing rock, for a start (She sang jazz on Shamblejam and the unreleased album).
It has some nice songs, some nice arrangements and some lovely bursts of music but, as often with "super groups", doesn't quite hang together. Unsurprisingly, given its date, it is heavy on key-boards - piano, keyboard and synthesiser and you won't get to hear Sue McC on the mandolin or guitar.
The band's other members were Phil Potter, an established solo performer, together with Donna Carey-Owen, Julie Moon and Steve Buckley. Chris Norton contributes one song and is responsible for arrangements.
The album was released on a new Marshalls label and John Pac is given a "special thanks" for "believing in us." Marshalls by now had taken over Pilgrim and Grapevine and John P was in the job which led to him eventually running Kingsway.
There's more Fresh Air out there and we'll be reporting on it soon.
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