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Rating: It's difficult to establish whether they invented British folk rock, but without a doubt, they were among the greatest exponents of that genre. I'm talking about Fairport Convention, namely five young men and a young woman who, in 1967, driven by a shared love for Bob Dylan and the Byrds, as well as folksingers like Richard Farina, Tim Buckley, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and many others from American folk rock, decided to start playing covers and some (very few, actually) originals. Is that all? Just any cover band? No, not exactly, because these youngsters, aged between 17 and 24, had the insane and for us delightful vice of taking their idols' pieces and deconstructing and reconstructing them with arrangements that were anything but trivial. Let's be clear, there was nothing virtuosic about them, only a crazy and adolescent love of playing, and a tremendous musical feeling, which with sometimes simple, sometimes less so, solutions led them to create little gems...
However, after their debut album, in 1968, Fairport immediately lost Judy Dyble, their first female voice (it's unclear whether she left or was removed; in any case, she ended up for a while in the antechamber of King Crimson's court...), and entered the formation Sandy Denny, the most beautiful, legendary, and unforgettable female voice of English folk. Immediately entering the studio, our guys recorded this second album, "What We Did On Our Holidays". This time the group decided to go beyond covers, and all the members, except for drummer Martin Lamble, contributed to the composition of the pieces like good siblings.
It must be said right away that already in this album, the lion's share (or rather, the lioness's) is taken by the recently arrived Sandy, who, despite having musical tastes similar to those of her companions, brought with her a generous dose of traditional Albion music, as understood from the piece that opens the festivities, "Fotheringay", the folk quintessence of the work. On the opposite side is Ian McDonald then Matthews's male voice, a true champion of the Californian wing of Fairport, as understood by listening to "Book Song" (Matthews, not surprisingly, after the album's release, will throw in the towel and emigrate to the US, faced with the traditionalist turn taken by his friends). In between, we find the lead guitar, Richard Thompson, endowed with a unique and personal, acidic yet sweet and unadorned instrumental style, who composed one of the most famous pieces of Fairport's entire catalog, namely "Meet on The Ledge", which is still played today at the annual Cropredy festival. It's a piece with a few chords, dealing with death and separation from loved ones, and knowing that it was written by a nineteen-year-old can't help but leave us, how to say... stunned. And we are even more so, considering that within a few months, fate would deal a pretty hard blow to the group and particularly to Thompson, with a car accident in which Lamble and Richard's girlfriend would lose their lives... finally, an interesting fact: bassist Ashley "Tiger" Hutchings composed the only blues piece, but soon, for the famous countershadow theorem, he would become the most intransigent and integralist guardian of the British folk tradition in the formation.
Still, there are covers of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, both rendered in a masterful and very original way, as well as British traditionals: in a sense, they reflect the transient nature of the album, with an American soul, let's say, opposed to a more traditional one, which would soon prevail without the two elements clashing, but rather giving the work a touch of eclecticism.
In conclusion, "What We Did on Our Holidays" almost forty (yes, indeed... time flies...) years later still sounds very fresh and enjoyable, perhaps also because it lacks the ambition and greater orthodoxy of the subsequent albums, which are nevertheless excellent and would culminate in that masterpiece, "Liege and Lief". Perhaps this sweet naivety that hovers over the album makes it seem like the account of a summer holiday spent by friends joyfully playing, still far from the dramas of adult life around the corner. And it's hard not to feel a bit of emotion with the piece that closes, even ideally, the work, "End of A Holiday", a melancholic guitar arpeggio without vocals, composed by the youngest of the group, Simon Nicol.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Fotheringay (03:07)
How often she has gazed from castle windows all
And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall
With no one to heed her call
The evening hour is fading within the dwindling sun
And in a lonely moment, those embers will be gone
And the last of all the young birds flown
Her days of precious freedom, forfeited long before
To live such fruitless years behind a guarded door
But those days will last no more
Tomorrow, at this hour, she will be far away
Much farther than these islands, for the lonely Fotheringay
03 Book Song (03:13)
If she knew what I see while I'm watching
Would she know where to smile, what to say
When she leaves from her book to be with me
Where's her mind as she stands while I play
She left behind names in the pages
And the time she took out they stayed here
Now she thinks that she maybe should tell them
Of my book and the places she's been
Now she's looking at me while I'm writing
Does she know where to smile, what to say
When she leaves from her book to be with me
06 I'll Keep It With Mine (05:54)
You may search at any cost
But how long can you search for what's not lost?
Everybody will help you
Some people are very kind
But if I can save you any time
Come on, give it to me
I'll keep it with mine
I can't help it, if you might think I'm odd
If I say I'm loving you, not for what you are, but for what you're not
Everybody will help you
Discover what you set out to find
But if I can save you any time
Come on, give it to me
I'll keep it with mine
The train leaves at half past ten
But I'll be back tomorrow at the same time again
The conductor, he's weary
He's still stuck on the line
But if I can save you any time
Come on, give it to me
I'll keep it with mine
07 Eastern Rain (03:35)
Rain comes from the east one night
We watch it come
To hang like beaded curtains till the morning sun
Water dripping from our clothes
You, with raindrops on your nose
Ask me sadly, "Please don't go away, love"
"Till the rain is done," I say, "I'll stay now"
Rain outside but inside we don't mind at all
Shadows by the fire
Slowly climb and fall
Kisses fade and leave no trace
Whispers vanish into space
None will send me on a chase to nowhere
What matters if I were the first to go there?
Morning comes up from the east
We watch it come
And far away now rolls the angry rain god's drum
You, with daybreak in your eyes
Afraid to speak for telling lies
I watch you search for some reply to lend me
But when the rain is done we'll stop pretending
08 Nottamun Town (03:12)
In Nottamun Town, not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look down
Not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look down
To show me the way to fair Nottamun Town
When the king and the queen and the company mourn
Come a-walking behind
And riding before
Come a stark naked drummer
A-beating the drum
With his hands on his bosom come marching along
Sat down on a hard, hard cold frozen stone
Ten thousand around me
Yet I was alone
Took my hat in my hands
For to keep my head warm
Ten thousand got drownded that never was born
In Nottamun Town, not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look down
Not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look down
To show me the way to fair Nottamun Town
10 She Moves Through the Fair (04:14)
My young love said to me
My mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you
For your lack of kind
Then she stepped away from me
And this she did say
"It will not be long love,
till our wedding day".
She stepped away from me
and she moved through the fair
and fondly I watched her
Moved here and move there
Then she made her way homeward
with one star awake
As the swan in the evening
moves over the lake
I dreamt it last night
That my dead love came in
So softly she moved
That her feet made no din
Then she came close beside me
And this she did say
"It will not be long love,
till our wedding day".
11 Meet on the Ledge (02:50)
We used to say "There'd come the day we'd all be making songs
Or finding better words" These ideas never lasted long
The way is up along the road, the air is growing thin
Too many friends who tried, blown off this mountain with the wind
Meet on the ledge, we're going to meet on the ledge
When my time is up, I'm going to see all my friends
Meet on the ledge, we're going to meet on the ledge
If you really mean it, it all comes around again
Yet now I see, I'm all alone, but that's the only way to be
You'll have your chance again, then you can do the work for me
Meet on the ledge, we're going to meet on the ledge
When my time is up, I'm going to see all my friends
Meet on the ledge, we're going to meet on the ledge
If you really mean it, it all comes around again
Meet on the ledge, we're going to meet on the ledge
When my time is up, I'm going to see all my friends
Meet on the ledge, we're going to meet on the ledge
If you really mean it, it all comes around again
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