Swift As The Wind - The Incredible String Band

From The Incredible String Band's third album, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, 1968.
A quintessential hippie release, one of the most deranged album of all time. What Captain Beefheart did to blues and jazz on Trout Mask Replica a year later the ISB does to folk music; essentially, the play it the "wrong" way, mixing combinations of the oldest, darkest European folklore and the most exquisite Eastern vocalising techniques, and (if you ask me) still coming up with a rather enjoyable effort. Just don't enjoy it too much, or you might become damaged beyond repair.
This particular track features haunting vocals and acoustics as Mike Heron apparently tells a story of a child whose wild and sometimes frightening imagination is scoffed at by his parents.

Lyrics:

For my delight
Swift as the wind flies
His chariot and wings
Shine in the light of a thousand suns
For he comes from the land of no night
He comes from the land of no night

There is no land
The night is all around my child
You must stop imagining all this
You must stop imagining all this
For your own good
Why don't you go with the rest and play downstairs

Closing my eyes
I see him so clear
The blood on his sword
Flashes so bright as it
Falls to the skulls by his feet

But his eyes they know all things
His eyes they know all

There is no blood
No-one knows all my child
You must stop imagining all this
You must stop imagining all this
For your own good
Why don't you go with the rest and play downstairs

Swift as the wind
Stay if you will now
Seeing you again will be in your castle so fair
But I make take some time on the way
And I may spend some time downstairs

Category:

Music

Tags:

• The
• Incredible
• String
• Band
• Hangman's
• Beautiful
• Daughter
• Mike
• Heron
• Robin
• Williamson
• 1968
• Psychedelia
• folk
• Elektra

[bwanna23]

I played this once for a New Jersey State Trooper and he almost ran through a wall to get out of the room. This gave me an even deeper appreciation for ISB.

[rfdawn]

ooooohhhhh  oooaaaahhhh oooaaahhhrrr

[doorman292]

i like how each isb album is a season. 5000 spirits=fall, hangman's=winter, wee tam and big huge=spring and summer respectively =}

[bbrannddX]

Thanks for posting the lyrics, Appo.

[MissBadGirl95]

the sound of the wind

[HengistTheGreat]

@bwanna23

"I played this once for a New Jersey State Trooper and he almost ran through a wall to get out of the room. This gave me an even deeper appreciation for ISB."

My 'thumb' isn't working, so please accept this 'Green thumb up'.

[BrianofSI]

No, no, no! It goes like this!

Ooooh oooh oooohh oooaahhh aaahaahaaahhhh aaahaaahaaahhhh aaaaaahhhrrr

It’s a great song. Mike Heron at his creative, unrestrained best.