Top 7 Barclay James Harvest Songs

Sadly, I do not listen to songs ... I listen to MUSIC and in this case ... ALBUMS ... and BJH holds a special spot in my heart all the way back to the original Mockingbird! It was one of the very first HARVEST albums I ever got.

I can not help feel that their complete history and canon of music is magnificent, and how sad it was that some folks think they are a "poor man's Moody Blues", when that band started poetic and ended up being a farcical copy of its supposed poetic notions ... which were dropped because the record company wanted more hits!

I'll buy more BHJ albums before any of MB's albums ... in fact I only have one ... the only album of theirs that matters. The rest is crap! And over  rated and smelly crap!

 

1. Medicine Man (16 points)

1. Dark Now, My Sky (16 points)

3. Ra (13 points)

4. Suicide (12 points)

5. She Said (9 points)

6. Mocking Bird (8 points)

6. Poor Man's Moody Blues (8 points)

I suspect you may be playing the part of the Mocking Bird in mocking Barclay James Harvest.

they were definitely an album band.  Look at the choices people are making re their top 7.  Some commonality but also a lot of outliers.   And some of their best songs are better because of how they fit on their albums.  Yes most albums even from the 1970s had a duff track or two, but a few of them were pretty close to perfect - Once Again, Everyone is Everybody Else, and Octoberon come to mind in particular.  And the others all have great songs.  I'm really fond of XII where Lees had a certain idea in mind for the theme and Holroyd wasn't playing along.  But it somehow worked quite well.

kenethlevine wrote: The only time I've seen them live (I believe they never made it to North America until the 2000s) was as headliner for a prog festival in PA, USA some years ago.   It was not that long before Wolstenholme took his own life.  While Lees' was sick as a dog at the show, he was a class act all the way, and they did their name proud.  I'm sure they had more hp in the 1970s but so did most of us!  Woolly was the main MC and was VERY funny.  One of his sadly prescient remarks concerned the average reaction that people get to saying that they are going to see BJH, that being "Barclay James Harvest?  Aren't they dead? "  Woolly said something to the effect of "Give it Time.  We're working on it"

 

Woolly was a VERY funny man when he was on form, very dry, lots of stories and anecdotes; with his clogs, 'Woolly-back' (Lancashire, particularly around Saddleworth area where the band originated from) accent and warm intelligence, he was someone I think endeared himself to many.. yet he suffered from severe depressions throughout his life in a quiet and dignified manner until he couldn't take it any more. Its very sad and still makes me very upset to think he's gone. His Maestoso albums are excellent, the Uneasy listening compilation is a good place to start.

The song "On Leave" from "North" is dedicated to him and is truly beautiful, with a haunting middle section.

I also think XII better than "Gone to Earth".  The first side of GTE is incredible - even Holroyd's Eagles ish tune somehow works.  But they seem to run out of steam on side 2.   XII has a couple of weak numbers - "Tale of Two Sixties" and "Turning in Circles" - but programming them out still leaves a great full length LP

Yes Holroyd liked the rock and roll style more than Lees but sometimes he would really hit the spot, particularly when combining that style with tron, as in "Rock n Roll Star", "Giving it Up", or "Believe in Me".  Interestingly, there was a DJ on the Carleton University station in Ottawa in 1978/79 who began every show with "Song for me" (which now that I think of it is right up there as a favourite from BJH).  When they did a feature on XII at the time of release, they commented on how, even then, BJH seemed to be the subject of undue hatred by critics and indifference by the North American audience.  At this point one of them piped up and said something to the effect that he always loves to listen to and talk about BJH because they are a great progressive rock band.   Prog rock does not have to be complex, dissonant, unstructured, and edgy to be great.

I also remember in college in the early 1980s, meeting a guy who was a British new wave fan through and through, and he knew and loved "Hymn".  I suppose if he had spent any time in Germany in the late 70s he would have known it.