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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 ais 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 power". 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.
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