I am unable to write about Fotheringay without featuring one of Sandy Denny’s beautiful songs, her exquisite voice, timeless lyrics and easy stroll through a tune. The Sea is the second track on Fotheringay’s debut album released in 1970. It’s a floating Folk Rock masterpiece of mood, calm and impending danger.

Unforgettable, poignant, mesmerising, Denny suffered a brain haemorrhage after a fall, she died in 1978 at the age of 31. Her death was a shock even though her erratic behaviour had led her husband Trevor Lucas to leave England for Australia with their daughter Georgia in fear of the child’s safety. What on earth was she thinking as the world around her fell apart in a confused haze of drink and drugs – apparently Lucas didn’t even tell her he was leaving

For her audience, when she was singing her songs, she was the only thing that mattered, the rest of the world shrank into the background, thankfully we still have her music despite tragically losing her.

(Photo – Keith Morris)

The Sea

Sandy Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978)

Do I ever wonder? You don’t know, you’ll never follow
And I’ll never show, do you see the water and watch it flow
And float an empty shell? And you think that I’m hiding from the island
You’ve a fault in your senses, can you feel it now?

Time, what is that? I’ve no time to care, I’ve lived for a long
While nearly everywhere, you will be taken, everyone
You ladies and you gentlemen, fall and listen with your ears
Upon the paving stone, is that what you hear? The coming of the sea

Sea flows under your doors in London town and all your defenses
Are all broken down, you laugh at me on funny days
But mine’s the slight of hand, don’t you know I am a joker
A deceiver and I’m waiting for the land?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotheringay_(album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Denny