You must remember this. This takes me right back to that winter of 1984/85 in Cosin Court. And unlike David Gilmour I haven't played this for years.
My god, it's exquisite though. My vinyl copy is still in mint condition and sounds better than ever. Despite being made up of tracks recorded by different performers working outside their usual partnerships, the album feels very much like a whole rather than a collection of parts.
I must have listened to Song to the Siren so many times back then that I expected it to be psychologically 'worn out' for me, but it made me tingle all over again.
And Another Day. I remember seeing Roy Harper play Another Day live, in Clare Cellars on 17 February 1985 (I remember the date, because I'd got back from a trip to Molesworth earlier that day with Abigail, and Billy Bragg). I was slightly miffed that Harper didn't mention this recent version in his introduction, but he did explain the story, of a reunion in Cambridge where a woman meets by chance an ex-lover-who-never-was and ponders what might have become of them if they had been lovers. Dead wistful, yeah. When I was on holiday in Brittany the following summer with Jeremy, JB and JB's girlfriend Laura, I passed on the story (we had the song on the mixtape I'd given Jeremy). Laura was quite moved by it. Last I heard, from Jeremy, I think she was in the Bahamas, married with several kids.
The cover versions on this record led me to buy first Tim Buckley, then Big Star, and most recently I got Another Day from iTunes (I never tracked down the original of the Colin Newman song, though).
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