Though he contributed spoken word pieces to the previous five albums plus an instrumental in Beyond from To Our Children’s Children’s Children only six Moody Blues songs were credited to their late drummer Graeme Edge as sole writer. This rocker, the last track on side one of Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, was one of them.

One of the more understated tracks on Jethro Tull’s 1971 LP Aqualung was this acoustic ditty, Wond’ring Aloud.

On the compilation album Living in the Past, was this reworking/extension, Wond’ring Again, which may be Ian Anderson’s masterpiece. A meditation on humanity’s propensity to mess things – especially the planet – up. From forty years ago!

It’s also a perfect example of Anderson’s lyricism, moving from the poetic to the mundane within a sentence.

Another of Status Quo’s founder members, bassist Alan Lancaster, has died. He played with the band through their early heyday, from 1967-1985 and again in 2013-14.

This song is from 1972 from around the time the band had hit on the recipe of driving rock which would ensure more sustained success and fan loyalty than they had previously achieved. Lancaster’s bass was a major part of that.

Alan Charles Lancaster: 7/2/1949 – 26/9/2021. So it goes.

A piece of slightly risqué pop. The clip has Noosha Fox dressed as a schoolgirl singing a song about a woman who falls for her uncle. But in any case he’s gay.

On Top of the Pops this was introduced by a now infamous sexual predator.

That will be why this clip starts so abruptly; as he’s been cut out of it.

I mentioned here that David Gates of Bread somehow managed to write love songs that just hit the spot.

From 1970, this was the group’s first UK hit.

Following the last song in this category another one with gay in its title but this time it’s the girl’s name.

One of Clifford T Ward’s understated (but the more effective for it) love songs.

A song from an age when to be gay in the UK, though not illegal for those aged 21 and above, was still to be vilified.

A bold gesture by Robinson at the time.

The sarcasm drips from the lyric.

Having said that I doubt such an overtly political song would be allowed such prominence (it was a top twenty hit in 1978) today.

It wasn’t till I started researching this that I realised this distinctive song (particularly the cracked vocal) was part written by Jackie DeShannon. See here and here. It is Kim Carnes’s version that is most familiar to people in the UK, though. The song remains Carnes’s only hit here.

Sadly, another death. The second such post in a row. This time it was B J Thomas, best known for singing the song below which was used in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The song was actually released in 1969 but didn’t become a hi until 1970 (though even then only a minor one in the UK, and his only one.)

Still remembered fondly.

This is how the song was used in the film:-

Billy Joe Thomas; 7/8/1942–29/5/2021. So it goes.

You can’t mistake vocalist Roger Chapman’s distinctive voice. A Family signature.