Today’s medicine is kind of what the daily dose is all about
In fact, it’s a little too perfect
I had to check with a couple people to gauge familiarity
Worried that folks would be like, yeah we’ve all heard this story and music a million times, it’s great but everyone is sick of it by now
Doesn’t appear to be the case, so here we go:
Vashti Bunyan is the quintessential record nerd tale
Combining a rare piece of wax, compelling history, quaint characters, and ravishingly beautiful music
Vashti was born in Newcastle and grew up in London
In her house, her parents mostly played classical records
But she got a transistor radio and picked up Radio Luxembourg, which introduced her to American rock and soul in the 60s
She was sent to Oxford to go to art school, but was so smitten with music that she ignored her classes and assignments
Interested only in guitar and song, she got herself kicked out
Another familiar story
Teachers, leave those kids alone!
She eventually made her way to New York where she got really into Bob Dylan (as befits a travelling art school reject 🙂
Her mom hadn’t given up on her, and via a friend, got her in front of Andrew Loog Oldham (the Stones’ manager)
He signed her and put out her first single (written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who were in the studio with her)
She says she was much too shy to interact with them in any way
Her own composition (“I Want to be Alone”) was on the b-side
It went nowhere
Likewise for her next effort on Columbia (in 1966), which also had a cover on the a-side and a Bunyan original on the flip
The “cover” was Train Song, composed by Alexander Clayre (“cover” because the music was hers, but the lyrics were by Clayre)
Full disclosure: I love trains. You know how toddlers and little kids are obsessed with choo-choos, model trains, steam engines, etc? I never got past that phase!
I particularly prize a guitar line mimicking the chugging
This is the first time we hear her grow into her sublimely simple vocal style
It was (and sometimes is) described as “juvenile,” a term that will return
But obviously for Rousseauians (Rousseauvians?) and other romantics like me, that’s far from a slight
After kicking around the London music scene for a bit with no success, it’s 1968
That fateful year
Vashti and her boyfriend decide to leave London on a kind of pilgrimage to the Isle of Skye, where Donovan had set up an artists’ commune
They actually knew Donovan personally – he supported the idea, and lent them some quid to buy a horse and cart for the journey
She had been discouraged by her earlier failures, and was determined to leave the music business behind
But she took her guitar and kept playing privately during their sojourn
It took them almost 2 years to finally get the Isle of Skye, travelling through the Scottish countryside
In case you’re curious (I was), here’s what it looks like there
You can understand the attraction
By the time they got there, though, the commune had fizzled out
The time, distance, and inspiration of a 1100 km horse-driven journey had left her with a bunch of new material
And at some point in her travels (I’m not sure precisely where), she met Joe Boyd, an American music producer
He had been in the UK helping to set up a British office of Elektra Records
He loved her stuff, and told her whenever she wanted to get back in the studio, he wanted to do an album with her
At the end of 1969, after the long voyage, she finally agreed
And in a intense series of sessions, cranked out the songs for “Just Another Diamond Day” released the following year on Phillips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-erNldHdV8&t=118s
It, too, flopped
She recalls reading a review in “Disc” the british pop music magazine, which panned the record’s infantile themes and simplistic music
“Just Another Diamond Day just made me depressed” the critic wrote
She took this all extremely hard
‘To me, these songs represented joy; how could I have missed the mark by so much that they are producing depression?’ (not an exact quote, I can’t find the interview right now)
She had only gone back to recording at Boyd’s urging, and had just had a baby
So the negative reviews and poor sales convinced her to give it up for good
So that was it; she retired to rural Ireland and Scotland, and spent her time in a farmhouse and raising 3 children
Actually living the bucolic life romanticized in her music
BUT
As she was off the grid, the record slowly and magically transformed into a digger’s sensation
Since it had sold so poorly, there had been few pressings
It was difficult to find copies
But folk collectors flocked to it
And a thousand music geeks traded clips of the anti-vanguard songs, simply arranged (many courtesy of Nick Drake’s arranger, a singer to whom she is sometimes compared, both for the style and the late fame/rediscovery)
The internet of course sped up the transmission
By the late 90s/early 2000s, Just Another Diamond Day is legendary, both for its rarity and its content
But Vashti is completely unaware, living with the sheep outside of Edinburgh
But eventually her kids grow up, and she can transition into a new phase of life
She chances to run into a singer who worked at an Edinburgh bookshop
He realizes it’s her, Vashti Bunyan
And shows her what’s become of her long-forgotten and buried record from 1970
Going for 2000 pounds on Ebay
She is of course shocked
And also delighted that her music, which she had completely written off after the chilly reception in 1970, was now the darling of the internet world
With apologies to Sigmund, the once repressed now gets repressed
The singer from the bookshop helps her get in contact with agents and record labels
Just Another Diamond Day gets reissued, to great acclaim
She goes back and records new material
Also fawned over by the specialized press and dorks from Seattle to Sao Paulo
This comment from YouTube is pretty great (and emblematic)
“I bought a computer and got on the internet just as she reissued the vinyl LP. I emailed her telling of my 30 year search for the album, and to my astonishment and pleasure, she replied. So my first ever email was from Vashti Bunyan. In real life she is the same person you hear on the LP.”
A couple of my favorite selections from the 1970 classic (though best to go for the full monty, above):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mClnSeRW5sU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwb9YalscBI
Title opener with exquisite woodwinds almost literally floating
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3W4sLS67oI
And the closer, the most traditional (with middle verse in Gaelic) complete with some ye olde fiddle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNjTNYqVSHw
“Iris’s Song” because its lyrics are excerpted from a poem by British writer Iris Macfarlane
The Gaelic verse was a translation done by a friend and neighbor from the scottish hinterlands
Special note for Katie, via Professor: Iris is the mother of Alan Macfarlane, the anthropologist who completed perhaps the most significant collection of interviews with authors in the field
You should also check out her post-rediscovery albums (I believe there are 3), and buy them on wax or on bandcamp
It’s always possible you find the whole production a tad puerile (as the original reviews did)
But for the rest of us, leave us our pleasures: toys, cakes, woods, lakes, farms, trains…and Vashti