Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
The Incredible String Band.
Side 1 ends with a splendid Mike Heron romp called “Log Cabin Home In The Sky”, which lasts exactly 4.00 minutes. It is a classic rockabilly song, but of course rendered in the unique ISB style. Mike plays guitar and washboard, Robin violin, and Rose (here credited for the very first time) viola.
Side 2 opens with another Heron masterpiece, and one which I have always associated with my wife. This is a waltz time song called “You Get Brighter”, lasting 5.44 minutes. It is an intensely cheerful song, with just two instruments: Robin on harpsichord and Mike on guitar. Whilst what the piece describes is a scientific impossibility, the sentiment expresses the true angst of first love.
Track 3 is a typically brilliant Williamson composition called “The Half-Remarkable Question”, which lasts 5.01 minutes. It is classic stuff, and the work of pure genius. Robin plays guitar and percussion and Mike adds in with his sitar. The question in question might be said to be revealed in the short middle 8:
“What is it that we are part of?
What is it that we are?”
although these words are described specifically in the song as “the old forgotten question”.
On any view of the matter, however, this is one of the best ISB songs ever recorded.
One of several unique features of the album is this notice which is the top right corner of the back cover:
and indeed it does. I was lucky enough to find that the second hand copy I had bought still had the poem insert:
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