Light On Dark Water

Al Stewart: Denise at 16

Weekend Music

Last week, trying to think of who The Clientele's singer reminded me of, I thought of Al Stewart. And then I thought of this song, which, though it's an instrumental, somehow has some of the '60s feel of The Clientele's work. Moreover, it's actually from the '60s. I'm not sure exactly when or where I procured a very scratched-up copy of an LP compilation drawn from Stewart's early albums, before he was at all known over here. There's some good stuff on it, but this little instrumental is the thing I like most. It may just sound like a pretty little tune to you, but to me it sounds like youthful longing. Or maybe, more specifically, like being young and in love.  It was recorded in 1967, and somehow it sounds like that time. I'm not saying that because I heard it then, either–I didn't hear until sometime in the 1980s.

 

I don't know how he gets that watery-wobbly sound. A recording effect of some kind, I guess. 

Well, I was talking about his singing, so here's what he sounds like. I think of this song often. The details vary (in fact when Stewart wrote the song he was apparently referring at least in part to an earlier time, maybe the 1930s), but we're still in a period of great change.

 

He's changed a lot. Apparently sometime between the 1970s and the late 1990s he assumed the appearance of a diffident accountant in late middle age, or perhaps a shoe salesman in the days when middle-aged men often held such jobs. I saw him perform a few years before this next clip was made, and it was a great show, very much like this, except that there was no bass player.

 

Maclin Horton

12 responses to “Al Stewart: Denise at 16”

  1. Janet

    Can’t listen right now, but does that font on the top video have late 60s, early 70s written all over it?
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Mac

    Indeed.

    Reply
  3. Ryan D

    I just wanted to thank you for these regular music posts. I’m a good bit younger than you, so I wasn’t around when this music came out, however I’ve always been drawn to the stuff that came out in the late 60s and early 70s. There’s so much good material there that I’d bet I could spend the rest of life mining it and always be finding something interesting.
    I’m currently listening to another “Al”, Al Kooper. I’d heard his name many times but was unfamiliar with his work. In 1968 alone, he put out the first BS&T album, Super Sessions and I Stand Alone. I think they’re unbelievably good and stand up to many of the better known classic albums from the period. It’s a shame they’ve been mostly forgotten through time.
    Anyway, thanks again. I’ll have to check out Al Stewart next.

    Reply
  4. Mac

    You’re very welcome. Happy to be of service. There’s probably a whole lot of good stuff from that time that I’ve never heard–never heard Super Sessions, for instance, although I remember people talking about it. Amazing how well so much of that music holds up. I really like the series of Al Stewart albums from the early/mid ’70s that are very history-obsessed: Past, Present and Future and Modern Times and Year of the Cat.

    Reply
  5. Grumpy

    Those were some of my brother’s favourite records (‘records’!). I still listen to them.

    Reply
  6. Mac

    “records” are what I have, too. I haven’t heard them for a long time. I think I’ll try to find some time today to dig into the LP shelf, which is behind a bunch of clothes in a closet, and listen to one of these. Stewart’s lyrics were so very much more intelligent and interesting than that of most song writers. I have heard that his later work is unjustly neglected, too. I remember one of the new(er?) songs he played at that show in the late ’90s was about Marion Davies, the actress who lived with William Randolph Hearst for many years: “Marion the Chatelain.” He thought it necessary to explain to us what “chatelain” means, which it probably was.

    Reply
  7. Grumpy

    I bought a few of the records as CDs a few years ago. I especially like ‘On the Border’. It is very English.

    Reply
  8. Mac

    Interesting. In what way? That wouldn’t be one of the songs I’d pick as sounding especially English, or being especially English in its concerns. But maybe the latter is part of it? Late or post-imperial awareness of global affairs? Some of it suggests the Spanish Civil War to me. Btw I’m reading Homage to Catalonia, which is fascinating.

    Reply
  9. Paul

    Are the guns being smuggled into Spain, or out? If the former, they could be for use by Basque separatists. If the latter, they could be going to Africa or the Middle East. Either would fit the 1970s/80s. Or is that too late for the song?

    Reply
  10. Mac

    Would Spain have been in a position to export arms in the 1970s? Well, even if not I suppose it could be have been a transit point. The song probably couldn’t have been written any later than 1975, as the album came out in 1976, but I guess the Basque stuff at least was going on by then. And Africa had had all sorts of turmoil for many years by that time.

    Reply
  11. Paul

    Ha! In the second version posted he says it’s about “the Basque separatist movement, the Rhodesian crisis, and the decline and fall of the British Empire”!

    Reply
  12. Mac

    Good work! Obviously I didn’t listen to the pre-song chat.

    Reply

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