‘Farewell’ / ‘Earl Gray’

On April seventh, 1970, Fleetwood Mac’s manager, Clifford Davis gave the news of Peter Green’s planned departure from the group to the New Musical Express.

Before he would leave, there were a number of studio sessions still to be done.  They would work with engineer Martin Birch, producing themselves. 

These sessions will produce the A and B sides of their last single by the band with Green.

On April fourteenth the band spends the day working through twenty-eight takes of ‘The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)’.

On April sixteenth, they return to the studio to record a B-side.  The tape box labels the number ‘Danny’s One’ (it will be released as ‘World in Harmony’).  They log twelve takes before calling it a day. (It is difficult to understand why these two numbers are proving so difficult to get on tape in the studio as they had been performing each in concert for some time with the earliest recording of ‘Green Manalishi’ dating from November twenty-first of 1969 and ‘World in Harmony’ from January nineteenth of 1970.

They have another go at the number the following day, April seventeenth, but decide to use the Master from the previous day for release.

They were apparently still uncertain if they wanted that number as the B-side as another two Kirwan penned instrumentals were also done that day, unimaginatively listed as ‘Without Title – 1’ and ‘Without Title – 2’ on the tape box.

It is possible that this session was the last time that Green was in the studio with Kirwan, McVie and Fleetwood (Jeremy Spencer did not participate in these sessions for the single).

After taking the weekend off, Kirwan and possibly McVie and Fleetwood returned to the studio on April twentieth to continue working on the two untitled numbers from the seventeenth.

The number logged as ‘Without Title – 1’ was freed from the vault twenty-eight years later on “The Vaudeville Years of Fleetwood Mac 1968 to 1970 Vol. 1” (Receiver 1998 – out of print*) under the title ‘Farewell’.

To the best of my knowledge, ‘Without Title – 2’ has never been released under any title.

Fleetwood Mac

Danny Kirwan: guitar & vocal /

(probably) Mick Fleetwood: percussion

Recorded April 20, 1970,De Lane Lea Studio,

London, England,

First released on: The Vaudeville Years of

Fleetwood Mac 1968 to 1970 Vol. 1 (Receiver 1998)

Farewell** (Logged as – Without Title -1) (D. Kirwan) (2:18) –

‘Farewell’ — a fascinating glimpse at another path not taken. It is tempting to refer to this number as a sketch, but it is boldly rendered and is a thing of beauty in its own right.

It also does not sound like anything else from the Fleetwood Mac catalog. It really looks forward to Kirwan’s first solo release, “Second Chapter” in 1975.

Kirwan strums and picks an acoustic guitar, (it seems likely that Kirwan overdubbed the other guitar parts as well)

The close miking imbues the sound with a warm woodiness, enhanced by the addition of some gentle hand percussion. The drums have been recorded with little resonance, giving them a “dry” sound, as if they were being played for their calming affect rather than for rhythmic accompaniment.

There are a few bars near the beginning where Kirwan sings some “La-la’s”, place-marking where he might want to add lyrics, but rather than distract us, the quiet soothing tone of his voice actually adds to the sense that we are being allowed a glimpse of a number during its gestation.

On Kirwan’s solo album, the quieter numbers tended to strain for a sense of ethereal beauty (with unwanted “help” from inappropriate production flourishes) and in doing so too often ended up only sounding fey; the strength of the playing here proves comforting, like leaning back against a massive old tree and being cooled from the summer’s heat in the shadows of its leaves and branches.

Kirwan and the band would return to this piece three months later, during the sessions for “Kiln House”, their first LP release without Green.

As when Kirwan produced ‘When You Say’ for Christine Perfect, this is the second time that he has completely rethought a number that he had put to tape just a few months earlier, each time improving on the first attempt.

A rare example of when “more” really is more. 

Kirwan has swapped out his acoustic guitars for electrics and the fuller sound and his vibrato buoy the listener, allowing them to float lazily down the river of the melody, gently turning in the sunlight that dapples the water through the leaves overhead.

Drums replace the hand percussion of the previous take, providing a sense of momentum.

At just over a minute, a rumbling piano underlines the rhythm guitar, deepening the dream state daze the music is creating, a sense that one is no longer on the water, but floating above it, still on a forward trajectory, gently turning round, the air now, not water, running through your fingers.

Kirwan and the band have created a number to equal ‘Albatross’ in its sense of beauty.

*This demo / outtake sat in a vault for twenty-eight years before being released.

After the original collection on which it appeared went out of print, it resurfaced on a three CD collection titled “Men of the World – The Early Years (Sanctuary 2000) which combined tracks from “The Vaudeville Years of Fleetwood Mac 1968 – 1970 Vol. 1” with tracks from the also out-of-print “Show-Biz Blues – Fleetwood Mac 1968 – 1970 Vol. 2” (Receiver 2002) as well as tracks from The Boston Tea Party.

The three CD collection is itself also unavailable and the track was last listed as being on “Black Magic (The Best of the Early Years” (Sanctuary 2011) – I am uncertain of its availability at this time.

**There is no reason to believe that this was a title that Kirwan had in mind for the number; this was simply what those compiling the “The Vaudeville Years of Fleetwood Mac 1968 – 1970 Vol. 1” decided to call it.

Nothing in the music gives a sense of leave-taking, if anything it harkens a new beginning

Kirwan’s difficulties with lyrics extended to titles – see his awkward interview from their “In Concert” BBC broadcast on April 09, 1970 at the Paris Cinema.  When asked by the M.C. the name of the instrumental just played, Kirwan is at a loss, until he is eventually prodded by the M.C. to name it after his Mother, Phyllis.

The piece played was released as ‘World in Harmony’ and the band had been playing it in concert since January 17, 1970 (there are at least ten performance caught on tape before the BBC taping). 

The compilers of the “Vaudeville” collection were simply trying to lend a gravitas to the number that it did not warrant when they named it ‘Farewell’.

If anything, it plays like a new beginning – like a time-lapse film of a flower shakily breaking ground, reaching towards the sun and silently blossoming open, showing itself to the world.