A piece of soft country-rock from the mid-70s. Very USian, even all the way down to the harmonies.

From the band’s first album rather heavy-handedly called Very ‘Eavy…. Very ‘Umble (but perhaps they thought it as well to acknowledge their name’s origin) and which appeared in 1970, their treatment of the anti-war song Come Away Melinda (first sung in public by The Weavers shortly before Harry Belafonte released his version) is reminiscent of early Barclay James Harvest and also features the mellotron.

“15?” you say. “Hadn’t this category reached no 153?”

Well, yes.

I had this noted down as having been between Julie Covington’s Only Women Bleed at 14 and Tony Joe White’s Groupy Girl at 16 in this category but when I went looking for it on the blog I couldn’t find it. Its original intended publication was in September 2011. That was the time when the blog started playing silly beggars and I lost quite a few posts before later restoring them. So, either I never posted this one in the first place or it wasn’t republished along with the others.

So here it is again. I haven’t a clue what I wrote about it all those years ago.

I suppose it’s quite topical this week for our friends across the pond.

Charles Aznavour, who died earlier this week, was dubbed the French Frank Sinatra which does him an injustice. He was a much, much better singer – and he could write songs too.

He was probably the last of the old guard, brought up in the French tradition, undoubtedly one of the greats.

This is a typical French chanson, fitting to mark his passing.

His biggest hit in the UK, though, was She. So successful was it outside France in comparison to in his homeland that in later days he apparently refused to sing the song in any language other than English.

Charles Aznavour (Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian): 22/5/1924 – 1/10/2018. So it goes.

Again speaking of Stuart Henry, he must have had a soft spot for Barclay James Harvest. In his Saturday morning show on Radio 1 he later began to use the, “So goodbye, pleased to know you. We had some laughs along the way. But I have to be leaving and there’s nothing you can do to make me stay,” refrain from this song – in its second iteration at 2.23 to 2.48 minutes in – as a jingle when he was about to hand over to the next broadcaster.

An odd one this; record producer Norman Smith taking the mike (yes that’s the abbreviation for microphone used back in the day) himself apparently as a demo for John Lennon to consider but fellow record producer Mickie Most said he should release it as he’d recorded it.

A plea for wildlife conservation sadly still appropriate nigh on fifty years later.

For all its rough and ready qualities there’s something oddly haunting about Smith’s singing voice.

Well, it’s the only one of The Sweet’s big hits I’ve not yet featured here.

This is from a performance on German TV.

Earlier this week I learned of the death of Danny Kirwan, guitarist with Fleetwood Mac from 1968 to 1972. His Guardian obituary is here.

Much overlooked in comparison to Peter Green, Kirwan was an important part of the band’s sound during the transition after Green’s departure. The song I’ve chosen, Dragonfly, is the only Kirwan composition (he wrote the tune to set the words of a poem by Welsh poet W H Davies) to make it onto the first Fleetwood Mac “Greatest Hits” compilation.

A less harsh, more melodic touch than Green’s (Man of the World notwithstanding.)

Daniel David Kirwan: 13/5/1950 – 8/6/2018. So it goes.

Another outing for the word nonchalant in a lyric; except here its inclusion is a little more forced.

The harmonies on the verse of this are sublime.

Clifford T Ward was an unusual pop star. Who else would have based a popular song around a Robert Browning poem in Home Thoughts from Abroad? (See here track 7.)

Not only did Ward use the word wherewithal in this song, he made it the title.

And I doubt you’ll find non-pareil in any other song lyric. (Granted, nonchalant is less rare.)