“Landscape stone”, collected from a Riverton Beach in 2018, polished mid-2019. I can see valleys and mountains there (the line in the Post title is from the start of “Hymn” by Barclay James Harvest). Such intriguing colours and patterns, layered and criss-crossed with lines of silica. Possibly petrified wood, possibly jasper, possibly something else, mysterious… Reminds me of valleys in the distance, of mountains in the mist, a Japanese watercolour landscape…
Barclay James Harvest, the group that sings this song, is an English “progressive rock” band, formed in 1966. To obtain their name, each of the band members wrote single words on pieces of paper which were drawn out of a hat one by one until only three were left: James, a guy who used to sing with the band, Harvest because they were living in a farmhouse, and Barclay after the bank, because they aspired to make money. These were then rearranged until they arrived at the best-sounding name – “Barclay James Harvest”. “Hymn” appeared on their 1977 album, “Gone to Earth”, and my wife has a vinyl copy of it.
On its website, the Band says this about “Hymn”: Originally titled “Hymn For A White Lady”, the song is primarily about the dangers of drug abuse, contrasting their illicit thrill with the spiritual “high” of Christianity, although many DJs and listeners have taken it for a straightforward Christmas song. The now traditional shouts of “yeah!” from the fans at the finale of the band’s live shows date back to early performances of the song, where John dedicated it to rock stars who had fallen victim to drugs, saying “let’s hear it for Jimi Hendrix… Paul Kossoff… Janis Joplin…” etc., and fans responded with a roar of approval.
One of the more famous performances of “Hymn” was at a 1980 free concert in front of the Reichstag in West Berlin, with an estimated audience of 250,000 – the version from YouTube posted below. They were the first Western rock band to perform in an open-air concert in East Germany (after Glasnost had begun in the Eastern bloc but over two years before the Berlin Wall fell), playing in Treptower Park, East Berlin in 1987 to more than 170,000 people.
The original recording (1971), with a slightly different sound (no single leading vocal, more keyboards):
“Hymn” by Barclay James Harvest
Valley’s deep and the mountain’s so high
If you want to see God you’ve got to move on the other side
You stand up there with your head in the clouds
Don’t try to fly you know you might not come down
Don’t try to fly, dear God, you might not come down
Jesus came down from Heaven to earth
The people said it was a virgin birth
Jesus came down from Heaven to earth
The people said it was a virgin birth
He told great stories of the Lord
And said he was the saviour of us all
He told great stories of the Lord
And said he was the saviour of us all
For this we killed him, nailed him up high
He rose again as if to ask us why
Then he ascended into the sky
As if to say in God alone we soar
As if to say in God alone we fly
Valley’s deep and the mountain’s so high
If you want to see God you’ve got to move on the other side
You stand up there with your head in the clouds
Don’t try to fly you know you might not come down
Don’t try to fly, dear God, you might not come down
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