Page & Plant - When the Levee Breaks

No Quarter is a live album by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, both formerly of English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was released by Atlantic Records on 31 October 1994. The long-awaited reunion between Jimmy Page and Robert Plant occurred on a 90-minute "UnLedded" MTV project, recorded in Morocco, Wales and London.
The reunion event notably lacked the presence of bassist and keyboardist, John Paul Jones, thus deviating from a comprehensive band reunion. Jones remained uninformed of this reunion by his former bandmates. Subsequently, Jones conveyed his discontent regarding the decision of Plant and Page to christen the album after "No Quarter", a track predominantly attributed to his compositional prowess.
In addition to acoustic renditions, the album features a reworking of Led Zeppelin songs featuring a Moroccan string band and Egyptian orchestra supplementing a core group of rock and roll musicians, along with four Middle-Eastern and Moroccan-influenced songs: "City Don't Cry", "Yallah" (or "The Truth Explodes"), "Wonderful One", and "Wah Wah".
Several years later, Plant reflected on the collaboration very positively:
The will and the eagerness with Unledded were fantastic and [Page] was really creative. Jimmy and I went in a room and it was back. His riffs were spectacular. To take it as far as we did, and the tour we did – it's one of the most ambitious and mind-altering experiences.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Quarter:_Jimmy_Page_and_Robert_Plant_Unledded

Wolf Alice - Freazy

In the dozen years since Wolf Alice first formed in London, England, the quartet has become one of the most beloved bands in the alternative rock scene. Known for their fearless live performances and intense, emotive, and highly melodic songs, they’ve earned rave reviews for their three EPs and three studio albums. Along the way, they’ve won some of the most prestigious music awards (Mercury Prize, Brit Awards, NME Awards), and been nominated for many more. Their successful streak continued when their latest album, 2021’s Blue Weekend, hit the top spot on the U.K. Albums Chart and landed on many year-end “best of” lists. With pandemic restrictions easing, the band is kicking off an extensive North American tour this month. Calling from England, frontwoman Ellie Rowsell discusses what it’s like to hit the road again, how she feels about receiving so many accolades, and her theories about why Wolf Alice inspires such fervent fandom.

How are you feeling as you’re about to set off on such an extensive run of tour dates?

ELLIE ROWSELL: I feel like it’s exciting every time. It will be nice to travel after so long being in one place, and to see different places and different people and play lots of shows. I think we’re going to a lot of places that we’ve not been before. I mean, we don’t get to see the places that much – you get there and you play a show and you leave – but you do what you can, and it’s quite a nice way of doing it. We’re playing a set at the moment which feels really good. It’s mostly Blue Weekend, but it’s got stuff from the other two albums, as well. I think we’re having a lot of fun performing. In England, we’ve got a really good light show, but I don’t think we can afford to bring that over to America. That’s a shame, but I think it will be a real performance-based show, which I actually think is better, in a way.

You seem to have an especially enthusiastic fan base. Why do you think that is?

ELLIE ROWSELL: I think one of the things is that we’ve never tried to be too cool. In the sense of, if you were to see us play absolutely awfully – it’s there on YouTube. We didn’t wait until we were really good to start playing shows – we just went out and did it. You can see us with all our awful haircuts and making fools of ourselves. And in a way, that makes people know we’re pretty normal. Maybe it’s that we’ve played a lot of shows. That’s the best way to connect with people. If you are lucky enough to be able to do that, then it’s a good way of building a fan base. It’s quite an organic way.

You’ve gotten a lot of big awards– what did you think when that started happening?

ELLIE ROWSELL: I think life goes on as normal, no matter how successful you are or what your job is. We all have these main concerns, like, “Are my family okay? Do my friends like me? Do I look okay?” We all have the same concerns, and life goes on as normal. When [awards first] happened I didn’t really understand what it meant. I still don’t really understand, but I think when you’re in a band it’s different than when you’re a solo artist because you’re four egos, and you ground each other. I think when the music takes precedence over everything else, that is mainly what grounds you.

How’d you know you should be a musician in the first place?

ELLIE ROWSELL: Well, I enjoyed it, is the main thing. I just went to gigs. I enjoyed watching music, and when I tried my own hand at it, it felt good. You can only go on that, really. And hopefully have people around you that can encourage you.

Wolf Alice has a pretty distinctive sound – how did you create that?

ELLIE ROWSELL: That’s very nice of you to say. I don’t know if it’s true. I feel like a lot of people will tell you that we sound like this, we sound like that. But I think we are steered by songwriting rather than what kind of band we want to be in. I don’t know if that was intentional. But if I am feeling inspired by metal, I will try my hand at metal. And if I am feeling inspired by anti-folk, I will try my hand at anti-folk, even though I am not in an anti-folk band, nor am I in a metal band. I think you let yourself be inspired by whatever. You don’t fall into a pigeonhole, which can be hard to get out of. It doesn’t make us unique, necessarily. But it allows you the freedom to explore, which is fun and good for an artist. If I make a demo of a song, and I want to listen to it a lot after it’s made, then that is a sign that I should proceed with the song. Because if I’m not obsessed with it, why would anyone else be? That’s it, really. That’s the only rule that I abide by consistently. There are always things that confuse me and make me feel some type of way that isn’t black and white – those things you write about because you can’t make sense of something. The process of making sense of it is interesting.

From: https://bigtakeover.com/interviews/InterviewEllieRowsellofWolfAlice

Buffalo Springfield - Rock And Roll Woman - Live 1967

1969.  I’m 20 years old, a junior at a large university in the Midwest, living in a loft near campus and having a good time:  avoiding classes, immersed in film, poetry, and herbs, but mostly immersed in The Music. Those were heady days indeed. Someone came up with the idea of starting an Open University, where people who wanted to teach would meet with people who wanted to learn, without credit. Learning for the sake of learning, one of those revolutionary 1969 concepts. I was asked to give a course in ‘The History of Rock Music’, which became quite a hit. I’d dude myself up in a paisley shirt with a clashing paisley tie, fluff up my jewfro, slip into my cowboy boots and go pontificate weekly in front of 100 rapt Eds and co-Eds. Today you toss an iPod or whatever they’re using today in the air and it’ll probably fall on someone who knows more about Stu Sutcliffe than I did then or do now. But then, by default and/or opportunism and/or cloistered adolescence, I was the Musical Guru of Clifton Avenue.
One day I got a call from SA, the Assistant Dean of the very reputable College Conservatory of Music, asking me to stop into his office. Ok, what did I do wrong now? He turned out to be short, bald, and charming. “I need to learn about this music. They tell me you’re the guy. So what we’re going to do is you’re going to sign up for Music Appreciation 101” (NO!) “but instead of going to classes we’ll meet once a week just the two of us” (Not before noon, ok?) “and have a mutual tutorial. I’ll teach you the fundamentals of classical music, you’ll teach me rock music.” (I guess.) “And I’ll give you an A for the class.” (YES!) It was a ruse. He didn’t teach me bubkis about classical music, which I regret even today. Could well be he tried, I admit. But what he was really there for was to pump my weed-addled brain, such as it was, about that music.
Jeff: “Here’s this group Buffalo Springfield. Very uneven, but some great stuff. Their main talent is a guy named Stephen Stills. This is his ‘Rock and Roll Woman.’”
SA: “Ah, that’s really great. You do realize that he’s juxtaposing two different scales against each other? (Sings the ‘La-la-la-la-la-la’ refrain.)
Jeff: “Um……”
For 45 years I’ve regretted not paying attention to SA’s explanation. So I took advantage of preparing for this posting by calling OG, the brainiest and talented-est musician I know. He’s 40, and I had the pleasure of introducing him to Buffalo Springfield when he was but a mere tyke. I called him yesterday, out of the blue. “Hey, OG, what key is ‘R&R Woman in?” Without pausing, he starts singing for me the melody line using the notes’ names instead of the lyrics.
OG: “D minor with an augmented 6th.  You know, the Dorian mode? But then it shifts into D major.”
JM: “Um….”
OG: “You know, like ‘Scarborough Fair’.” [Sings, note names instead of lyrics.] If it were a regular minor scale it would be [sings, with the 6th a half-step lower.] It’s a standard blues thing, where you play in major and sing in minor.”
JM: “Um…., sure.”
So I guess I had to wait 45 years to get thoroughly convinced that my Pooh brain ain’t ever gonna master musical theory to that extent. In my next incarnation, I am resolved to study at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. That’s a promise. But in this go-round, I guess all I’m going to get to do is nostalgize a bit about great songs like ‘Rock and Roll Woman’.
Buffalo Springfield was a flimsy amalgam of superegos, Stephen Stills (Louisiana), Neil Young (Canada), Richie Furay (Ohio) and Jim Messina (Texas). Based in LA, they hung together for a mere two years (from 1966) and three albums. The first is utterly forgettable except for the Hippie anthem ‘For What It’s Worth’. The second is their piece de resistance, including masterpieces from Furay (‘A Child’s Claim to Fame’), Young (‘Mr Soul’), and especially Stills (‘Everydays’, ‘Bluebird’, and our Song of The Week, ‘Rock and Roll Woman’.) The third is a collection of cuts recorded by individual members, some of them very fine (Stills’ ‘Pretty Girl Why’, ‘Questions’; Young’s ‘On the Way Home’, ‘I Am a Child’; Furay’s ‘It’s So Hard to Wait’).
Buffalo Springfield (the name refers to a company that manufactured steamrollers) existed in a perpetual state of adolescent identity crisis. The members squabbled, the group never really decided who it was. One cut is all Grateful Dead, the next quasi-Association. It’s not a multifaceted smorgasbord; it’s a coreless mashup. Their discography is as messy as the infamous Stills-Young relationship, leaving behind as many outtakes, studio demos and live recordings as Ghengis Khan did offspring. But, oh, what music they made on the way to their dissolution.
1964-65 were the years of the British Invasion. American rock only began to become relevant in 1966, with The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield on the West Coast and slightly earlier The Lovin’ Spoonful in New York. All three, but especially Buffalo Springfield can be legitimately credited with introducing country music into rock (as well as rich, complex harmonies). Of course The Beatles had done it first (like everything else), starting with ‘What Goes On’ as a novelty in 1964, moving into ‘I’ve Just Seen A Face’ and ‘I’m Looking Through You’ in the 1965 Rubber Soul period. The Byrds were exploring the same material as Buffalo Springfield at the same time, but Jim McGuinn’s dominant personality instilled a more cohesive vision in their recordings. The Lovin’ Spoonful were, like the Springfield, a patchy group, but Sebastian had his head screwed on more tightly, was much more careful a craftsman than the Springfields, and created a more significant body of work.
Late one night a month before the Buffalo breakup, Stills recorded on a whim the fascinating “Just Roll Tape” which surfaced recently. Then in 1968 he joined up with David Crosby (ex-Byrds) and Graham Nash (ex-Hollies) to form Crosby, Stills and Nash, revolutionizing the aesthetic of popular music. Young recorded two solo albums before joining CS&N in 1969, initially adding a ‘why?’ to the group. Furay and Messina founded Poco. Later Messina joined up with Kenny Loggins, and Furay with J.D. Souther and ex-Byrd Chris Hillman.
At their best, Buffalo Springfield was unsurpassed in creating groundbreaking music as singer-songwriter rocker musicians par exellence. ‘Rock and Roll Woman’ is them at their best, even if you don’t know the Dorian mode from a Vanilla Fudge sundae. The lyrics were supposedly inspired by Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick, that coolest of rock and roll women. According to Stills, the song “came from jamming with David Crosby at his house. We got hung up on the F to D change in D-modal, which is mountain minor tuning. We kept playing it over and over and over again.”  From: https://jmeshel.com/198-buffalo-springfield-rock-and-roll-woman/

Children of the Sün - Emmy

I can just about say I was a child of the 70s, having been born 10 days before the decade ended. But since childhood I was always told I had an old head on my shoulders, too. So I class myself fully as a child of the 70s, and am very partial to some throwback psychedelia from those sunshine times of Hippies, flares, and out-there thinking. Luckily, Sweden’s Children of the Sün feel the same, despite only being youngsters! They’ve clearly got the same old head as me, and have managed to transport their sound perfectly back to those good old days, with their latest album release, “Leaving Ground, Greet The End”.
Album opener, ‘Sugar (Shape of a Gun)’ instantly sets the tone for the album.  A slightly fuzzed out tremelo guitar, and upbeat rhythms and bass sit below the floating vocals of leading lady Josefina Berglund Ekholm, with a shit ton of flange and echo thrown at it, and 60s/70s style harmonies. It conjures images of the hallowed fields of Woodstock ‘69, full of people smoking, dancing, plaiting flowers in their hair, and just having a great time. Their latest single, ‘Lilium,’ follows. This is a slower ballad, and interestingly the harmonies and general feel in this track almost make me burst into Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. It’s a beautiful song that ebbs and swells, with an acoustic section that has all the elements of a campfire rendition, with the setting sun in the backdrop. We also get treated to more incredible vocals as the song draws towards an end. It’s just beautiful.
And this is very much how the album continues. It’s beautiful songwriting done in a cabin in the woods with good old-fashioned pen and paper, according to the press release! I’m a huge fan of this, and if I ever get a chance to sit down at the piano to play or write, technology is left to one side, because a pencil and manuscript is all you need. Understated but perfect performances from all musicians, harmonies aplenty, catchy melodies, chilled out vibes, and skillful observations give this band a huge amount of authenticity. There’s even a bit in ‘Come With Us’ that to my geek brain sounds like they’re about to launch into the Red Dwarf theme music, which gives them an extra mark from me!
They even chuck in a slowed down, and hippied-up version of Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ – I didn’t even think it would be possible to make this song more synonymous of it’s time, but clearly I was wrong. It’s genius! The final track on the album ‘Gateway,’ is just stunning. And I can hear so many of the greats in their early days coming through in this. The harmonies are absolutely beautiful, the semi-tonal descending switching from major to minor. I could listen to Children of the Sün all day, every day, and never get bored, so this is going to be my first, and quite possibly easiest, 10/10 score for 2025.  From: https://www.ever-metal.com/2025/01/14/children-of-the-sun-leaving-ground-greet-the-end/

The Butthole Surfers - Something

Formed in Austin, Texas, but of no fixed abode for much of their late-’80s heyday, the Butthole Surfers resembled a cross between Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and the early, no-budget Alice Cooper—a roaming freak show of improvised druggy chaos. Along the way, they left behind a trail of deranged and damaged recordings. Stalwarts of the post-hardcore underground that spawned Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr., Butthole Surfers seemed the least likely of the scene ever to go mainstream. Instead, they seemed more likely to grow into a Dadaist Grateful Dead for the 1990s, playing to ever-larger crowds of the turned-on faithful, but way too weird for radio and Walmart. The name alone seemed like an act of commercial suicide. But, surprising everybody, Butthole Surfers signed to a major label, made an album with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, traveled the United States on the first Lollapalooza tour, and, eventually, cleaned up with the modern rock radio hit “Pepper.”
Speaking from their Austin homes, guitarist Paul Leary and drummer King Coffey discuss their pre-crossover days of insanitary insanity, via the latest batch of Butthole Surfers reissues from Matador Records: Cream Corn From the Socket of Davis, Locust Abortion Technician, and Hairway to Steven.

Pitchfork: Last summer, I was saddened to learn about the death of the band’s onetime drummer Teresa Taylor—or, as she was known back then, Teresa Nervosa. I understand she originally left the Butthole Surfers in 1989 for health reasons?

King Coffey: She had brain problems, supposedly partially attributable to the strobe lights we used onstage. The doctors asked, “Have you ever been exposed to any strobes?” And Teresa laughed, “Oh, you’ll never know how many strobes I’ve witnessed.” She struggled through many problems in her final 10 years. But I’m just so grateful that we had a chance to know her and play with her and be her de facto brothers.

The two of you pounding away at your stand-up drum kits was quite a sight back in the day—Teresa’s flaming red tresses flailing! Sonically impactful, too, the twin drum attack.

Coffey: When I first joined the band, I was doing real basic kick and snare drums, from having been in this hardcore band the Hugh Beaumont Experience. Playing like a wind-up monkey. In the Buttholes, Teresa started playing these really cool tribal beats. I learned how to play just being with her and watching her. We kind of worked with one brain.

The first time I saw a Buttholes show, in 1987, I was totally unprepared for the audio-visual assault. Singer Gibby Haynes squirted flammable liquid on a cymbal, set it ablaze, and kept smashing the cymbal with a drumstick—flames shot up to the ceiling! I’m thinking, Is this whole venue going to go up in smoke?

Paul Leary: We were really lucky, because we set fires every night for a decade, but we never got hurt. One time, Gibby got injured by an exploding coffee pot, but that was when we were staying at a house in Georgia. His skin was falling off his arm for a month. In those days, we couldn’t afford a doctor. But we never got injured on the actual stage. Even with the shotgun.

The shotgun?

Leary: We’re playing the first Lollapalooza tour—second on the bill, in the mid-afternoon. Our light show wouldn’t work in daylight, so Gibby got a 12-gauge pump shotgun and he’d load it up with what’s called popper loads—they don’t shoot bullets, but they’re used to train dogs, by having a louder, more violent explosion than a regular shell. Siouxsie and the Banshees was on that first Lollapalooza bill. At one show, I was playing a solo and I looked down—there’s Gibby and Siouxsie at my feet, wrestling around with a shotgun pointed at my head, trying to grab it from each other. That was like seeing a rattlesnake—I jumped 10 feet in the air.

There’s so much lore around the Buttholes — outrageous exploits and crazy antics. My wife saw your infamous concert at Danceteria, in 1986, the one with live sex acts taking place onstage.

Leary: We’d been in L.A. and got an offer from Danceteria to play two shows, Friday and Saturday. So we drove from L.A. to New York, a pretty hefty drive, but when we showed up on Friday they said, “Oh, you’re only playing tonight.” We were not happy about that at all, and we kind of let them have it. Towards the end of the show, I pulled out a screwdriver and went around destroying every speaker in their PA and their monitors. They paid us, but they were threatening Gibby and telling us we’d never play New York again.

Do you ever feel that the legend and the lore obscures the music? Amid all the chaos and the clowning, there’s some great rock — particularly on Locust Abortion Technician and Hairway to Steven, there’s a sheer majesty to the sound.

Leary: I don’t remember thinking like that. I thought we were pretty pitiful! Starving punk rockers going from town to town, trying to get enough money to buy beer and pot and gas. This was before the internet and cell phones — we had a basket in the van with maps of all the towns in the United States.

Coffey: We had an “us-against-the-world” mentality. We’d all been washing dishes in Austin, Texas, and then we thought, fuck this. Let’s just be a band. Let’s hit the road. People talk about these amazing shows we did — keep in mind that everything was self-contained in a Chevy Nova or a van. We didn’t have this big arsenal of lights, a road crew — it was just the five of us, the dog, and whatever fit in a van. We didn’t have a manager.

Leary: All we had was burnt bridges in our rearview mirror.

Coffey: Even though it was grindingly hard at times, we were also having a blast. None of us had girlfriends, boyfriends, a place to live, but at least we were doing what we set out to do. We’d all crash in the same Motel 6 room or whoever’s house we were staying at.

Leary: Waking up on the floor next to some stranger’s cat box.

Coffey: Later in life, I realized we were run like a commune. We had one communal fund that we’d take money out of to eat, or for gas. We’d get money from a show and put it back into the fund.

Interesting that you mention communes, because the Buttholes always struck me as this bizarre merger of hippie and punk. A compelling collision of mind-expanding music and mind-debasing everything-else. The lyrics and the album artwork reveled in the gross and grotesque. Like those films you used to back-project at shows: penile reconstruction surgery, car crash carnage.

Leary: I think Gibby got a lot of those films from the University of Texas film library. He’d call in and say that he was Dr. Gibby Haynes, and he needed this movie and that movie.

From: https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/butthole-surfers-on-the-deranged-and-damaged-1980s/

Jon Anderson - Olias of Sunhillow

"Olias of Sunhillow" is the debut full-length studio album by UK progressive rock artist Jon Anderson. The album was released through Atlantic Records in July 1976. After touring in support of their seventh full-length studio album "Relayer" (1974), the members of Yes agreed that it was time for a break, which gave the individual members of the band the time and energy to record solo albums. Lead vocalist Jon Anderson retreated to his English country home in Seer Green, Buckinghamshire with a mobile studio and Yes engineer Mike Dunne to help with the technical aspects of the recording process. Other than Dunne, no one else was involved in the recording of "Olias of Sunhillow", and Anderson therefore performs all instruments and vocals on the album.
Anderson is not a natural instrumentalist but he practiced real hard and became relatively proficient before the recording process began (he plays no less than 30 instruments on the album). But he wisely kept things simple, although some parts can sound pretty complex, but that´s mostly due to the multi-layering of instruments and vocals. In other words Anderson realised that his greatest strength was his voice and "Olias of Sunhillow" is of course an album featuring many sections focused on said voice. Often layered with backing vocals and choirs. The instrumental part of the music is a quirky ambient and atmospheric type of folky semi-progressive rock, featuring very few sections with "rock drumming", and instead featuring subtle use of percussion.
Anderson knew from the start that he would make a concept album, and "Olias of Sunhillow" is indeed a concept album featuring a sci-fi themed story about four different races who are forced to leave their planet and are helped by some super beings/gods? to relocate to another planet and start a new life there. It´s a new age concept which goes hand in hand with the sometimes ambient new age atmosphere of the music. Anderson´s use of eastern/asian/caribbean instruments further enhances the new age feeling. So it´s an album combining elements from progressive rock, folk rock, psychedelic rock, world music, and ambient/atmospheric new age music. Think the most aimlessly noodly and atmospheric sections from "Tales from Topographic Oceans" (1973) and you´re halfway there.
The element that Anderson always gets right is his optimistic, uplifting, and fantasy based spirit. I haven´t met the man, but I imagine that he is one of the most well-balanced and friendly guys on the planet. You can´t produce lyrics like these and perform them with such an honest optimism if you don´t mean it. I have great respect for that although "Olias of Sunhillow" to my ears does become a little too "light" and sometimes shallow listening experience. It´s an incredible pleasant listen and it´s well produced too, but the new age atmosphere reduces the album to background listening more than once during the playing time. A little more variation in atmosphere and maybe just a few hard rocking parts for dynamics would have been nice.
When that is said we´re still dealing with one of the top vocalists in the world and of course there are many great ideas spread across the album. Anderson´s performance is top notch when it comes to his vocals and he manages to get a lot out of his relatively limited instrumental skills. Upon conclusion "Olias of Sunhillow" is not necessarily for fans of Yes...at least not for fans of the bombastic and dynamic part of the band´s repetoire and in that respect Anderson has truly made a solo release, which stands out and which is different from the work of his (then) main project. It´s for example not like listening to Chris Squire´s "Fish Out Of Water" (1975), which is basically a Yes album with only one member of Yes performing.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=4370 

Steeleye Span - Twa Corbies

Ray Fisher sang the bleak Twa Corbies, accompanied by her brother Archie on guitar, in 1962 on their EP Far Over the Forth; this recording was included in 1965 on the Topic compilation Bonny Lass Come O’er the Burn, in 1975 on the famous 4 LP compilation Electric Muse and later on its CD version New Electric Muse, and in 2009 on Topic’s 70th anniversary anthology Three Score and Ten. The EP’s sleeve notes commented:

When is a ballad not a ballad? Answer—when it isn’t sung. The Twa Corbies has for long been regarded as one of the most flawless as it is one of the grimmest of all our ballads; but it wasn’t being sung. No tune appeared to survive in oral tradition and attempts at setting it remained literary, academic and dead. Then R.M. Blythman (the Scots poet “Thurso Berwick”) set it [in ca 1956] to this marvellously sombre old Breton tune, An Alarc’h, The Swan, learned from the Breton folk-singer Zaig Montjarret. The result was astonishingly right and The Twa Corbies has passed into the repertoire of our younger folk-singers. It is related to the English Three Ravens.

Jean Redpath sang Twa Corbies in 1962 too on her Elektra album Scottish Ballad Book. She noted:

Proof that not all of the ‘big ballads’ are big in both form and feeling, Twa Corbies owes much of the power of its impact to its very brevity. In contrast to the more hopeful Three Ravens—that form of the ballad which is more widely known—this version presents in five compact stanzas its hard and cynical comment and captures the very spirit of the Anglo-Saxon fatalism, especially in the terrible finality of the last two lines. In this form the ballad is rare in Britain, has no European analogies and is practically unknown in Canada. The popularity of The Three Ravens and its variants in America has been attributed to minstrel stage burlesque. Since it is difficult to explain how such apparently restricted oral tradition has resulted in such a perfect and unique poem, it has been suggested that Twa Corbies is in fact a formal composition, perhaps from the pen of Motherwell. Whatever its origin, this ballad, stark and desolate as it is, remains one of the most arresting I know.

Nigel Denver sang Two Corbies in 1965 on his Decca album Moving On. He noted:

The two crows are discussing where they are going to eat, one says behind the wall there is a knight slain in battle, his hawk, his horse and lady have deserted him SO we might as well finish him off. The underlying theme is the absolute futility of war. The tune, which is Breton, was married to the song by Morris Blythman, a Glasqow schoolteacher.

Paul McNeill sang Two Corbies, accompanied by Trevor Lucas on guitar, in 1966 on his Decca album Traditionally at The Troubadour. He noted:

I can’t even remember where I first heard this song, but I’ve always thought it the finest, sparest ballad in existence. Trevor Lucas made this arrangement and when he played it to me, I jumped at the chance of singing it. I hope it doesn’t offend too many purists.

Steeleye Span recorded Twa Corbies in 1970 for their very first album, Hark! The Village Wait and more than 25 years later for their album Time, this time with the shorter title Corbies. A live recording from The Forum, London on 2 September 1995 was released on the CD The Journey. The first recording’s sleeve notes commented:

[…] otherwise known as the Two Ravens, and sometimes called The Three Ravens. First printed in [Scott]’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in 1803 it is one of the most popular of the Scottish ballads. For those unused to the dialect the two birds are discussing the pros and cons of eating a newly slain knight. Ashley Hutchings: “This goes back to the 13th Century at least, and it was recorded at Tim’s suggestion.” Why is it particular about a knight? Why not a footsoldier? “Songs that go back a long way are usually about Lords and Ladies, possibly because they were a great source of interest to the people, rich and poor.”

And the Time sleeve notes commented:

Scraggy feathered, mean beaked carrion crows tearing at the tender flesh of a dead, deserted knight. As an image of impermanence there is no equal.

In between both studio albums, Steeleye Span’s singer Maddy Prior recorded Twa Corbies in 1993 for her solo album Year. She noted:

Reflection on death in its physical reality is known to the Buddhists and Hindus, but in the West only in Medieval times was it dealt with directly and evoked by skeletons carved on graves and gruesome images of Death the Reaper. In these more antiseptic times there is little in this line and flowers, wreaths and gentle doves cloud the unacceptable thought of our mortal destination. This song dates from earlier times and is for me a brilliant examination of decay.

From: https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/twacorbies.html