The Incredible String Band was formed in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK by folk musicians Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, and Clive Palmer (1943 - 2014). They recorded their eponymous debut album in 1966, a lighthearted affair which revealed only the merest hint of the psychedelic adventures to come. After that, the band broke up. Palmer decamped for the Trail to Afghanistan and Williamson visited Morocco from where he returned laden with exotic instruments like the famous gimbri, which was, much later, eaten by rats. In 1967 Heron and Williamson recorded 'The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion', an audaciously eclectic mix of bookish folk music, hippy love songs and Eastern modalities. They soon became the-name-to-drop-in-interviews for luminaries such as Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan, and in their annum mirabilis of 1968 they practically defined the hippy counterculture in the extraordinary albums 'The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' and 'Wee Tam and the Big Huge'. By then the group consisted of Williamson, Heron, Rose Simpson and Licorice McKechnie - the same line up played at Woodstock in 1969 at the wrong time, having refused to play in the pouring rain the previous day (seen by manager Joe Boyd as a great missed opportunity).
In 1970 Robin Williamson attempted to fuse the music with his theatrical fantasies in a quixotic multi-media spectacular at London's Roundhouse called 'U'. It was "a surreal parable in dance and song" and highlighted the fact that they were never destined to make much money out of things. After that they lasted another four years. By 1974 tension between Williamson and Heron, who was pushing the band into prog-rock territory, had become unbearable and they split up.
Williamson soon formed "Robin Williamson and His Merry Band" which toured and released three albums of eclectic music with a Celtic emphasis. Within a few years, he went on to a solo career, moving increasingly into traditional Celtic styles. He also produced several recordings of humorous stories. Heron formed the rock group "Heron" and later released occasional solo albums. Responding to a comment by Joe Boyd in 1997 that they hadn't spoken since the breakup in 1974, the pair got back together for two concerts. This was followed by a full reunion of the original three members plus Williamson's wife Bina and Lawson Dando in 1999. By 2001 both Robin and Bina Williamson had left. Heron, Palmer and Lawson, and new member Fluff toured regularly around the United Kingdom and internationally until an end to the tour was announced in 2006.
The music of the ISB ranges from quite conventional folk songs to innovative “art song” and hybrid forms that were a precursor to World Music. In 1967-8 they were sometimes described as part of pop music's "avant-garde", which had emerged in the wake of the more adventurous work of The Beatles, with whom they were often compared. Although they lacked the Beatles' broad pop appeal, the ISB showed a similar interest in extending the boundaries of their music. Both Mike Heron and Robin Williamson would break apart a traditional song structure, inserting seemingly unrelated sections in a way that has been described as "always surprising, laughably inventive, lyrically prodigious". While at times this resulted in a lack of conventional unity, it also opened up the song musically and thematically to allow greater depth and exploration. This aspect of their music, combined with Williamson’s soaring melismatic vocal ornamentation (perhaps influenced by Islamic chanters heard during his visit to Morocco, as well as by the Scots-Irish traditional singing with which he had grown up) made for music that still sounds fresh forty years later.
Nightfall
The Incredible String Band Lyrics
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Washing the thoughts of the day on your waters away
For the morrow that dawns never knew me
Nightfall nightfall folding her dark locks around you
Her eyes they have found you
Would show you this new dream they're holding
And I'll give you my eyes for the colors that rise
As time's echoes reflect on your water
The Incredible String Band's song Nightfall is a poetic and mystical tribute to the transformative power of nightfall. The singer longs for the river of night to wash away the thoughts of the day, to cleanse the mind and prepare it for the new dawn. The river becomes a metaphor for the transformative power of the darkness, as it symbolizes a space of forgetting, where memories of the past and concerns about the future are left behind. The singer asks the river to flow through him, to carry him away on its currents, and to connect him with the powerful forces of the natural world.
The song's second verse introduces the figure of Nightfall, the personification of the darkness. Nightfall is described as a woman with dark locks who holds a new dream. Her eyes are said to have found the singer, suggesting that he has become the object of her attention. She is a goddess-like figure, a powerful force of nature that brings transformation and renewal. The singer invites her to come to him, to take his eyes and to show him the colors that rise as time's echoes reflect on the river's water. This imagery suggests that the darkness is not a place of emptiness or absence, but rather a space of potential and creativity, where new ideas and visions can be born.
Line by Line Meaning
Nightfall, o river of night flow through me
The singer is asking the night's river to wash away the thoughts of the day and allow them to fully embrace the night.
Washing the thoughts of the day on your waters away
The singer is asking the river to cleanse them by carrying their thoughts downstream and washing them away.
For the morrow that dawns never knew me
The singer is expressing a desire to fully embrace the present moment because the future is uncertain and may never know them.
Nightfall nightfall folding her dark locks around you
The artist is personifying the night and expressing how it envelops them with its dark beauty.
Her eyes they have found you
The artist is again personifying the night and suggesting that it is watching over and embracing them.
Would show you this new dream they're holding
The singer is saying that the night has a new dream or vision to share with them.
O sleep, o come to me you who are night's daughter
The singer is calling out to sleep, personifying it as the night's daughter and asking it to come to them.
And I'll give you my eyes for the colors that rise
The artist is saying that they will surrender themselves to sleep and the night's dreams, allowing them to see the world in a new way.
As time's echoes reflect on your water
The artist is referring to how the river captures and reflects echoes, suggesting that the night and its dreams are also echoes of the past and present.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Capitol CMG Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: BENNY CARTER, MANNY KURTZ
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind