Listen, listen

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....)

Rez Band speaking at Greenbelt - new video

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....)

How can a poor man stand such times as this? - unreleased track

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.