Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind - Decca single, 1965.
I Want To Be Alone - Decca single, 1965.
Train Song - Columbia single, 1966.
Love Song - Columbia single, 1966.
Winter is Blue - unreleased single, 1966.
Coldest Night Of The Year - unreleased single as "Twice As Much and Vashti", 1966.
I'd Like To Walk Around In Your Mind - unreleased single, 1967.
Winter Is Blue - Acetate demo, 1966.
Girl's Song in Winter - John Bunyan's tape, 1966.
If In Winter (100 Lovers) - John Bunyan's tape with Mike Crowther, 1966.
Wishwanderer - Restored acetate demo 1967.
Don't Believe - John Bunyan's tape 1966.
17 Pink Sugar Elephants - John Bunyan's tape 1966.
Track Listings (12) - Disc #2
Autumn Leaves
Leave Me
If In Winter (100 Lovers)
How Do I Know
Find My Heart Again
Go Before The Dawn
Girl's Song In Winter
I Don't Know What Love Is
Don't Believe What They Say
Love You Now
I Know
Someday
Following the amazing success story of Vashti Bunyan's recent reemergence as an artist after an exile of over 30 years comes the release of Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind, a comprehensive collection of early recording... more »s from the period prior to her classic 1970 Just Another Diamond Day album. Titled after the (Jagger/Richards-penned) debut single which opens the double-album, Some Things attempts to both draw a line under the past and also to set the record straight regarding the disparity between how Bunyan viewed (and still views) herself and the way the public views her as an artist. While she is widely regarded as folk singer these recordings instead reveal Bunyan as a pop singer, however "fragile" and unique. As she explains in her liner notes to the album, "I have heard it said that Andrew Oldham took this fragile little folk singer and tried to make her into a pop singer against her will. No, he didn't. Too fragile for his world I might have been, but that was no fault of his...I wanted to bring simple acoustic music into mainstream pop."
This complete collection of Bunyan's 25 existing early recordings is a young London girl's series of beautiful love songs that resonate profoundly via an almost brutal efficiency and honesty. The melodies seem timelessly sweet and addictive, the vision at once delicate but somehow tough as granite. The first disc gathers together the early singles (two of which were unreleased) and a set of demos recorded between 1965 and 1967; the second comprises the and entire, unaltered contents of a long-forgotten tape discovered at the last minute before mastering, containing a set of raw, pure, intimate recordings.« less
Following the amazing success story of Vashti Bunyan's recent reemergence as an artist after an exile of over 30 years comes the release of Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind, a comprehensive collection of early recordings from the period prior to her classic 1970 Just Another Diamond Day album. Titled after the (Jagger/Richards-penned) debut single which opens the double-album, Some Things attempts to both draw a line under the past and also to set the record straight regarding the disparity between how Bunyan viewed (and still views) herself and the way the public views her as an artist. While she is widely regarded as folk singer these recordings instead reveal Bunyan as a pop singer, however "fragile" and unique. As she explains in her liner notes to the album, "I have heard it said that Andrew Oldham took this fragile little folk singer and tried to make her into a pop singer against her will. No, he didn't. Too fragile for his world I might have been, but that was no fault of his...I wanted to bring simple acoustic music into mainstream pop."
This complete collection of Bunyan's 25 existing early recordings is a young London girl's series of beautiful love songs that resonate profoundly via an almost brutal efficiency and honesty. The melodies seem timelessly sweet and addictive, the vision at once delicate but somehow tough as granite. The first disc gathers together the early singles (two of which were unreleased) and a set of demos recorded between 1965 and 1967; the second comprises the and entire, unaltered contents of a long-forgotten tape discovered at the last minute before mastering, containing a set of raw, pure, intimate recordings.
"Vashti Bunyan's first and second albums were released, uh, thirty-five years apart. Meaning it could have been more than three decades before we heard from her again.
Fortunately such is not the case. "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Singles and Demos 1964-1967" collects scattered odds and ends of Bunyan's early work, and you'd really never have known that it's from decades ago -- these two discs are full of timeless pop and pretty little folk songs.
It kicks off with the title track, a smooth and catchy concoction of strings, cymbals, guitar and brazen horn. The lyrics aren't exactly perky, though: "Why does the sky turn grey every night?/Sun rise again in time/Why do you think of the first love you had?/Some things just stick in your mind," Bunyan sings in a sweet, slightly off-kilter voice.
Afterwards, she murmurs through the soft tambourine folk of the "I Want To Be Alone" -- call it Garbo folk -- and the lo-fi acoustic ballad "Train Song." Then she glides effortlessly into a string of gentle folk melodies, flavoured with quirky instrumentals and bittersweet, haunting lyrics. And, of course, pioneering freak-folk like the gloriously offbeat "Coldest Night of The Year."
And the second disc is made up of taped 1964 demos -- lo-fi, stripped-down little guitar ballads with no musical ornamentation other than Bunyan's lovely voice. She recites the title, starts gently playing a little acoustic guitar, and singing in a hauntingly sad voice.
You can tell how rough these demos were: "Leave Me" starts with Bunyan reciting the title, followed by a man saying something incoherent to her. She says it more loudly, and chuckles self-consciously.
Admittedly, this release isn't perfect -- the aged tapes from the sixties have shown their age, and despite careful remastering they sometimes sound tinny or crackly. Not Bunyan's fault, though -- her voice and beautiful lyrics are absolutely stunning and heartbreaking, and her instrumentation definitely verifies that she is the Godmother of Freak-folk.
And even in the crackliest songs her little guitar shines out, playing wistful soft-edged melodies. In some of the earlier ones, it's festooned with other sounds -- sweeps of violin, xylophone, trumpets, countryish harmonica, a touch of sitar, cymbals, tambourine, and occasionally even some solid drums. But none of these detract from the sadness of her music, or the power that that one acoustic guitar gives her.
Her voice is the real highlight, though -- you can tell it hasn't been tinkered with even when the tapes were remastered, because she occasionally sounds slightly off-key. So her soft, fairylike voice has a sweetness and purity that most pop singers can't achieve with computer help -- and even more important, her vocals are saturated with a sense of longing, loneliness, and love.
But her lyrics are the absolute breaking point -- every one is a gorgeous, bittersweet little poem. They're evocative ("Train wheels beating, the wind in my eyes") and painfully emotional, full of faithless lovers, men who don't love you as you love them, and uncertainty. Even in the most cheerful of her songs ("I'd sit there in the sun of the things I like about you/I'd sing my songs and find out just what they mean to you") there's a sad edge.
The crackles and age of "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Singles and Demos 1964-1967" can't hide the bittersweet purity of Vashti Bunyan's music. Broken hearts, lovers and sorrows -- absolutely stunning."
Vashti-Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind
Greg 'Yardbird' Prevost | Upstate, NY | 01/01/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"FINALLY! Highly recommended collection of the mid-60's Vashti masterpieces-I had only heard the 45 that was officially out-the amazingly ULTRA Andrew Loog Oldham constructed/Jagger-Richard written (Mick did some percussion on this as well) Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind/flip...this collection has it all-including demos recently unearthed by Vashti and available to the world...Vashti is her own artist, so I don't want to make comparisons-but if I had to-and you're not familiar with her compostions-she has many parallels to Marianne Faithfull's Decca/London era and the early to mid-60's Francois Hardy...I HIGHLY recommend this-love her voice and style...great packaging also-like a mini-album..."
Essential
Robert Burns | Tallahassee, Florida United States | 12/22/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"After hearing the bonus tracks on the "Just Another Diamond Day" CD along w/ a couple of other older tracks on compilations, I thought "someone really needs to compile all the early Vashti tracks on a single disc".
Less than a year later, the good folks at Fatcat Records heard my wish and did me one better ! This is a wonderful 2 disc collection of Ms. Bunyan's pre-JADD singles and b-sides along w/ a number of wonderful demo tracks and a complete CD of home demos.
I wont go into detail trying to describe the music since there are sound samples included in this listing.
Standout tracks include the studio version of "Winter Is Blue" and the Jagger-Richards penned "Some Thing Just Stick In Your Mind" but, really everything here is must-have material for Vashti Bunyan fans and will help make the wait for the follow-up to 2005's "Lookaftering" bearable."
My current favorite CD
Rick Tanney | 09/28/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Despite the vintage of these recordings, Vashti Bunyan is a fresh voice. The "Train Song" is especially appealing, and was used recently in a TV commercial, which is where I first heard her sing. If you were a fan of folk rock in the 60's, you would probably put this CD on the same shelf as Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Judy Collins."