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Play Me An Old Fashioned Love Song

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Just an old-fashioned love song
One I’m sure they wrote for you and me
Just an old-fashioned love song
Comin’ down in three-part harmony

So sang the Three Dog Night in 1971.

Today I heard the song Beeswing by Richard Thompson and was reminded that, not only is it a mighty song in its own right, but it’s also one of the most wonderful, tear-inducing love songs I can think of. Beeswing has it all: Wonderful lyrics that I can totally identify with, a melody to die for and guitar playing we bedroom strummers (oo-er) can only dream of.

It’s the perfect love song, isn’t it?

Unless you know better.

3

Comments

  3. One of my favourite Thommo lyrics, from ‘Brown hair zig-zagged round her face, a look of half-surprise’ to ‘Last I heard she was sleeping rough, back on the Derby beat. White Horse in her coat pocket and a wolf hound by her feet.’

    • And…

      “She said “Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell.
      You might be lord of half the world, you’ll not own me as well”

      Do lyrics get any more pointed and poignant than that?

    • I didn’t think RT could ever beat the brilliant original version of Beeswing, which is on Mirror Blue.
      But I have to say that I reckon the re-recorded version on “Acoustic Classics” is even more incredible.

      • I believe the song Beeswing was written about Anne Briggs.
        “RICHARD THOMPSON: I wrote the song Beeswing kind of about her. There was a thing in the 60s where people dropped out to live in the country and get their heads together. People like Vashti Bunyan and Annie Briggs: these wild, free spirited women. They were quite inspirational. Anne was great. I saw her a couple of times in folk clubs, but the only times I only actually ever met her she had drunk herself into unconsciousness.”

    • My wife had this as track number 1 on her birthing compilation. After several hours of contractions, she was whisked off to theatre for an emergency C-section, leaving behind her kit. As I followed, in my scrubs, a radio started playing Phil Collins’ ‘Another Day In Paradise’. Cue Mrs F screaming at the surgeon “Turn that F***ing sh*t off and get my CD.” A junior doctor was despatched, returned with CD, and cued this up on the player. “Are you sure?” asked the surgeon, to a sea of raised eyebrows. “Oh yes, this is her favourite” I replied.

      Our daughter was born soon after to the sound of Squeeze’s ‘Some Fantastic Place’.

      I still don’t allow Phil Collins in the house.

  12. In other hands it would be soppy, but Van delivers Have I Told You Lately That I Love You with enough feeling to bring a tear to a glass eye.

    The original is great, but how good is this version with The Chieftains?

    • ‘Thank you very much there Billie. Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday there. Billie Holiday there our Waterfront Correspondent. Billie Holiday our Waterfront Correspondent on location’.
      – Huw Edwards

  22. ( 10 quality posts – O comments- I see. Right. )

    Hello ?????? Anyone there ? Am I in a parallel universe ?

    I honestly don’t know why I bother.

    Hari Bogoff – Get Ter Feck Shanti.

    (stomps off and zips up yurt flap in a very macho fashion – from the inside. So THERE!)

  25. Central to the joy of Beeswing for me is that my mind’s eye effortlessly conjures an image of exactly how she looks. The same thing happens with Chris Wood / Hugh Lupton’s One in a Million – Peggy Bateman and Billy Smith are familiar faces to me – that’s the gift of a good lyric. And it’s a cracking old-fashioned love song.

  26. This is a love song, trust me. I respect how, every now and then, songwriters (the master craftsmen among them), after writing a song, think to themselves “ooh, that’s a good one, I will not dumb this one down for everybody, they’ll just have to feel it or they won’t”. This is a love song, trust me.

  28. For me Lucinda always gets to the point. Try ‘Those three days”:-

    Did you only want me for those three days?
    Did you only need for those three days?
    Did you love me forever just for those three days?

    The just in the last line says it all:

  29. A song by a guy who doesn’t get too many mentions on this board – David Ackles.

    From the American Gothic album, here’s his simple, affecting love song to his wife Janice – “Love’s Enough”

  30. David Bowie didn’t record many love songs. This is a delicate beauty of a song and he sings it with such passion (the musicians’ deft touches aren’t half bad either).

    Wild Is The Wind

    • The Wedding Song that closes Black Tie White Noise is a gorgeous tune and a proper love song, and almost the only time in DB’s career when you can definitively say that he means it, maan.

      I can’t imagine many AWers tolerating its early-ninetiesisms so I’ll let those who are interested find it for themselves.

  31. I’m surprised with all this discussion of RT and love songs nobody has yet mentioned the most beautiful of all.. “A heart needs a home.” .. And this is my favourite version; a cover by Loudon Wainwright and Shawn Colvin.

    • Yeah, I love ‘Debris.’ Billy Bragg does a version too, doesn’t he?

      I really like that line that goes “Oh, you was my hero”, with a real East London ‘was’ instead of ‘were’.

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