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By 1972 The Incredible String Band had begun to gain credibility that is, they had begun to lose their incredibility. The
ground-breaking and inimitable work of THE 5,000 SPIRITS through WEE TAM AND THE BIG HUGE was behind them and they perhaps
knew this. In the early 70s they were becoming a band as opposed to an event and because as a band they were perhaps less
than they were as an event, their latter work is perhaps unwisely dismissed.
Most likely, if they had not broken up, they would have reinvented themselves as a first rate art-rock band but certainly,
Robin Williamson's heart was not in it. He was by this time collecting British isles fiddle tunes and reinventing himself
as a singing Celtic poet. If he was not fully behind the new ISB direction, this direction was not —for the most part—
impeding the course of his song-writing; his songs at this point are filled with profound self-doubt and sorrow. If not for
the dazzling epiphanies of his early writings, they might have now bottomed into despair and self pity. They did not.
The other half of the original duo, Mike Heron, seemed firmly behind the New Improved ISB. However, his song-writing, which
through their halcyon days had been at worst solid, was now inconsistent leaning towards empty sentimentality.
The new blood of the ISB pulsed through the songs of Malcolm LeMaistre. A dancer from the Stone Monkey Mime Troop, Malcolm
had joined the band a few years earlier but had not written for them at the time or, I suspect, for anyone. Stone Monkey had
provided the dance component to the "surreal parable of song and dance," that was the ISB's touring production, U. Their core
idea that dance had been usurped by professionals and academics was similar to the musical philosophy underlying the ISB.
Malcolm's songs would be the freshest, most spontaneous and newest thing the New Improved Incredible String band would have
going for them.
They recorded their last three albums:
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EARTHSPAN, was a thoughtful diligently produced album marred by one if not two very bad Mike Heron Songs. Here we find Robin's
two jazz songs, the first of which, "Restless Night" is one of his finest. We find Licorice and Mike's enigmatic set piece,
"Sunday Song." And with "My Father Was a Lighthouse keeper" and "Dancer," we are introduced to Malcolm's songs.
NO RUINOUS FUED is simply awful! Le Maistrre's fabulous "At the Lighthouse Dance" and lush "Down Before Cathay" cannot save
it. Nor can Williamson's plaintive but hollow "Saturday Maybe" or Dolly Parton's "My Blue Tears."
HARD ROPE AND SILKEN TWINE is uneven. Sadly our new champ, Le Maistre, takes a dive with the completely uninteresting "Glancing
Love." Heron's "Maker of Islands" is an engaging piano-pop ballad complete with string section. Williamson's "Dreams of No
Return" is a near masterpiece while Mike Heron's side-long "Ithkos" launches Heron onto the stormy seas of progressive rock
whereupon he immediately sinks.
Speaking of which, a motif of seafaring prevails on all three albums. It is odd for a band heretofore steeped in pastoral
imagery. Williamson and Heron, if not the others, were Scientologists at this time. I wonder if there is a correspondence
between the motif and the fact that Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard was then on a long ocean voyage seeking, according
to his son LRH Jr, for treasure he had buried in his previous life. Or perhaps the motif is Malcom's. Born on one of the Channel
Islands, the sea was perhaps his enduring and, at this point, overpowering metaphor. Whatever its source, it is something
I enjoy very much about these last three albums.
Malcolm gives us the mysterious "Sailor & The Dancer" and the ungainly but exuberant "Down Before Cathay." Le Maistre's best
song, "My Father Was A Lighthouse Keeper," is as enigmatic to me today as it was then. Not even the sex of the lover who lies
on the beach with the singer is certain. One cannot help but think of the phallic imagery of the lighthouse with the singer's
father inside watching the sinking ships of the distant seafarers. The song's sequel, "At the Lighthouse Dance," turns the
enigma of its predecessor into surrealism and mythic rock or as close as the 1SB could come to it. The father's lighthouse
is now the scene of an unlikely rave. Some angels, a sea captain, Alice and a space invader are all there.
Mike Heron gives us the serviceable "Maker of Islands," the lamentable epic "Ithkos," and the unmentionable "Seagull."
Robin Williamson's "Old Buccaneer" is barely mentionable. In his "Banks of Sweet Italy," however, we find a Nineteenth if
not Eighteenth Century style English seafarer. It is none other than the young man seeking adventure on the high seas promising
to return to his true love. It is a hint of both the traditional British isles folk music he is listening to at the time and
the songs he will later write for The Merry Band which he will form in the mid-70s in LA.
There are few storms on these oceans and this music's deepest shadows are found on land and, as I say, in Williamson's songs.
Though "Banks of Sweet Italy" is lovely and lush in words and tune, "Cold Days of February" is a far more successful courting
of the traditional muse. There is nothing derivative in this indictment of modern warfare. Born of a deep reflective if not
visionary moment, the song is strengthened not weakened by the inclusion of Williamson's personality in it.
"The Actor," co-written with Malcolm Le Maistre, portrays an actor in the 1930s reflecting on his life as he leaves the theater.
It is a role with which Robin is perhaps identifying. The production is flawed musically but the mood and depth of Williamson's
thought are inescapable. "Let the Moon Hang Low" is one of Robin's two jazz songs and perhaps that is the main reason the
song fascinates me. "Restless Night," however (the other jazz song). begins with the insomniac actor/singer Williamson walking
nowhere along a beach (again the ocean!) through the fog and the years.
grave thoughts on useless paper,
they roll and blow away
while the band was playing
such a sad refrain.
Sounds my ears have lost
continue through the rain.
"Saturday Maybe," a song of infidelity, is marred by the fact that it is either entirely made up and does not ring true, or
by the fact that it is uncomfortably too true and therefore too hard to sing. Otherwise it shares this contemporary melancholy
I had always considered Robin's elegant and elegiac "Dreams of No Return" to be the ISB's valedictory statement to the 1960s,
the decade they helped make and which helped make them.
old hotel
the walls weep and the door leans
blackbird quits the eaves
and the lonesome spider sings
saw my sweet and soothing prayer
was air
Why should you care?
I never solved the tune they made
There was already too much shade.
What could it bring?
What if you know
I need no hand of yours
but still I feel your kiss while I have words to sing
Perhaps you treasure nothing from before
from before
"Perhaps you treasure nothing from before" is a sobering suggestion from one who brought the past to life so vividly in his
songs. (The word 'tune' is perhaps' 'tomb.') As I heard it, the old hotel is the world, Robin is both the lonesome spider
and the blackbird. I felt it was simultaneously a song of valediction and a song to a former lover. I suggested this to Robin
as we were driving through Santa Cruz. "No," he said, "it was a song to God."
Sadly, one of the finest songs of this period remained unreleased for twenty years. It was heard live on the BBC in 1971 and
released with little care or effort on "On Air," part of a live broadcast ISB concert. Simply entitled "1968" it is the necessary
companion piece to "Dreams of No Return" and was written by Mike Heron.
Was it written to God? Hubbard? a former lover? The 1960s? or to Robin? I do not know. The melody is richly nostalgic. Here
are some of the words:
My friend, the nights are longer.
Do you think we're learning more?
Do you think we will be sure
of all the song
of all the song there is?
Did we step wrong somewhere?
Did we, my friend?
Are we lost?
Are we lost?
Are we lost, my friend?
The voice of water running cold
still speaks so real to me.
And I still love to see
a rainbow,
a rainbow.
You played your strings
like they lead to the truth.
Sang your words
like clear Spring light.
Let's do it one more time
and we'll keep the fire going.
Bright sunshine in darkest night.
Light
Bright sunshine in darkest night.
© 2004 by David Nigel Lloyd
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