Blowin' Free

Introduction

I am wondering if I can write six hundred words about a single song. I was so tempted to take it as a prompt for a poem for my wonderful Muse but I am going to write about the song and its effect on me.

The Song "Blowin' Free"

When I first heard it I heard the guitar riff and recorded it from Alan Freeman’s Saturday Afternoon Rock Show, and Alan Freeman didn't say what the song was. This was pre internet and Shazam so if you didn’t hear if the DJ bothered to actually say what the song was then you were stuck.

I had the tape, I learned to play that gorgeous riff, I wrote down the words, and I still didn't know what the song was or who it was by, but I had it and I could play it.

“I Thought I Had A Girl

I Know Because I Seen Her

Her Hair Was Golden Brown

Blowin’ Free Like A Cornfield”

So I had actually written down the song’s title, I just didn’t know that’s what it was called. And to me those words are perfect poetry describing an unattainable love.

“She was far away

I found it hard to reach her

She told me you can try

But it's impossible to find her

In my dreams everything was all right

In your schemes you can only try”

Wonderful words in a beautiful setting, I fell in love with this song, and could not find out what it was called. I suppose I could have written to the Alan Freeman show but I was a teenager besotted with a song.

Time went by and by and by and eventually I played the riff to a friend who told me it “sounded like” “Blowin’ Free” by Wishbone Ash. He had the album , “Argus” with the knight with a spear on the cover in a golden fog, on a green landscape. At this time we had discovered Tolkien so the cover made me think vaguely of Middle Earth.

Wishbone Ash featured the twin guitars of Andy Powell and Ted Turner. The title of the album refers to Argus and the definition they give is a Greek mythological giant with a hundred eyes set to guard, also any observant or vigilant person.

Following “Blowin’ Free” songs are “The King Will Come”, “Leaf and Stream”, “Warrior” and “Throw Down The Sword” , I could see which path this was leading me down.

When I got to a record shop I got myself a copy of the album so I had “Blowin’ Free” in my hands and on my turntable.

The line “She Was Far Away” has been a permanent situation for me, I have never found anyone close but the song still gives me total goosebumps every time it plays and every time I play it.

I was wondering whether to finish this off with a poem of my own but I think the words of “Blowin’ Free” are sheer perfection for me so I won’t using it as a starting point this time, and hopefully you will listen to it and enjoy it, possibly as much as I do.

Released on April 28, 1972 "Argus" transformed Wishbone Ash into international stars, its soothingly evocative strains introduced a pioneering twin-guitar approach that was adopted by countless other bands. They are still playing today although Andy Powell is the only original member still with the band.

The guitar harmonies in their songs are wonderful and "Blowin' Free" is a perfect demonstration of that.