"....take the shadow from my eyes..."

Songwriter: Les Holroyd
Performed by: Barclay James Harvest
Album: Time Honoured Ghosts (1975)
When I heard it: Some time between 2002 and 2006, though I cannot be sure of exactly which year. Probably 2005.

There was a time when being in a rock band was associated with a certain kind of mythology (and I'm not talking about the mythological motifs that heavy metallers mine for their lyrics). It meant looking, dressing, playing, being, sounding and living a specific way, mythologised and romanticised. It was spoken of in legendary tones, and typified what rock bands looked like in the 70s. You know, the band photos that would appear on album sleeves or at the back of them.

It was also associated with a specific kind of sound. Now unless you were a heavy metaller, or a country music fan, this specific "rock" sound usually meant either heavy or grooved progressive rock (the kind that finally landed up becoming undistinguished peddled AOR with bands like Journey (later albums), Styx, Foreigner, Kansas and the like.) It had very little rock'n'roll in it, or even blues; but it did have classical sounding, pompous heaviness, a certain pretentious, derivative intellectualism which showed in expansive, literary-sounding lyrics.

At many ends of this progressive spectrum, were the primary influences (themselves influenced by more seminal early bands); Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Cream and The Yardbirds (the blues and heavy-rock influence) and to a lesser extent, bands like Ten Years After. There were also lyrical, classical and 'art' pretensions - bands like Pink Floyd (so-called 'psychedelia', though Floyd were ultimately merely peddlers of doom), Moody Blues, art-rockers Genesis, and classical rockers Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Yes. There was some British influence, though not too appreciably, from progressive rockers there - The Beatles and The Who mainly, as well as art-rockers from the Canterbury scene - Gong in particular.

Why all this history? Because it has a lot to do with Barclay James Harvest's essential sound in the song I showcase today. The song is called "Sweet Jesus", from their 1975 album Time Honoured Ghosts. I HAVE to admit I bought this album more for the beautiful, artsy album cover and the romanticised album title rather than any great love for BJH's music. I must admit I am not a BJH fan at all, except for this one song. "Sweet Jesus" is a forgotten track, and didn't hit at all, though it appears on what is generally believed to be their best album.

The sound I'm trying to get at, is essentially distilled from Deep Purple's (and Led Zeppelin too) overdrive guitar - Hammond organ interlock, essentially lofty-sounding ballad forms with 'progressive' chords and mystic, dreamy themes. It's not exactly art-rock, or psychedelia, it is just a leftover from both, neither distinguished, nor truly 'progressive'. The origins of "Sweet Jesus" are there, but there are charming leavening touches like a smidgen of songwriting, and using a rhythm acoustic guitar rather than an electric. This was the kind of sound we were all after in the 70s.

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"Sweet Jesus", for all its sordid musical sound origins that I've just provided, has become quite dear to me. One of the factors is nostalgia for the 70s, yes, undeniably; but it is also more than that. Somehow, it manages, in my mind, to escape its derivative origins and its predictable sound, and to bring to mind the green-grey swirling mists of England. The specific instrument that does this for me, in "Sweet Jesus", is Stuart Wolstenholme's mellotron organ, and to a lesser extent, the smattering of harmony in the song. I can imagine the Cliffs of Moher, shrouded in mist and wisps of rain-laden cloud, or St. John's cliffs on Hoy, or even Slieve League; my mind stays on the heights of frosted-out Connor Pass in the Dingle peninsula.

This is why, for all its pretensions, a song like "Sweet Jesus", from a band like Barclay James Harvest, finds its way into the Cumulonimbus Archives.

Where's the lady and the time I used to know
I think that I've been on the road too long
Scenes of better days are pictured in my head
And haunting me those old familiar songs

Oh sweet Jesus hear me cry
Let me see a clearing sky
For tomorrow I may be back home again
So take the shadow from my eyes

Sunday morning comes I'm feeling kind of down
I can't see back to where it all began
And I know you'd help me if you only could
I don't know why or where or who I am

Oh sweet Jesus hear me cry
Let me see a clearing sky
For tomorrow I may be back home again
So take the shadow from my eyes
Take the shadow from my eyes

I'd not read too much into the mention of "Jesus". Honestly, I'd have to say, it seems less like a prayer than a mindless plea from a nostalgia-ridden one in the haze of a drug-induced hangover. Even so, it would be fair to say the phrases "let me see a clearing sky" and "take the shadow from my eyes" ring with as much conviction and truth as the song allows.

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Barclay James Harvest's major influences were always thought to be Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, and to a lesser extent, The Beatles (evidenced by song "Titles" on Time Honoured Ghosts, a loose compendium of Beatles tunes and titles). The album has generally been considered their most coherent and consistent effort, their sound always typified as 'mellotron-based rock with lead guitars'. It's mostly ponderous, pretentious sounding stuff with just a little spontaneity and an experimental feel, unlike Moody Blues at their most leaden, but very like Moody Blues at their most melodic.

The absolutely beautiful cover art is by Bill Dare, working off a painting by American artist Maxfield Parish called "Harvest".