The 20th of February 1972
Official U.K. Singles Chart results from Sunday the 20th to Saturday the 26th of February 1972
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 19th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 20th,
announced on Tuesday the 22nd,
and broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 1 on Sunday the 27th of February 1972.
Cat Stevens
Morning Has Broken
At No.32, on the the U.K. Top 50 Singles Chart the day I am born, is Cat Stevens with “Morning Has Broken”.
A bit of a classic tune here,..
…which, with these lyrics, can be traced back to 1931 as a hymn written by children’s author and poet Eleanor Farjeon.
The tune itself stretches back much much further, but for the purposes of it becoming song, or hymn, the first recorded history of that can be pinpointed to the mid 19th Century, and to a Scottish Gaelic lady named Màiri Dhòmhnallach (Mary M. MacDonald).
A devout Baptist, Mary never spoke English.
She lived in a settlement on the Isle of Mull, in the Western Scottish Isles called Àird Tunna (Ardtun), near the small village of Bun Easain (Bunessan, which means ‘Bottom of a Waterfall’), with her husband Neil.
While Neil was out working what land he had to make sustainable to live off in the way of Crofting, Mary would spend her time at the spinning wheel singing hymns and poems.
One of these was a hymn entitled “Leanabh an Àigh”, with a locally well known traditional melody to accompany it.
At some point around the 1880’s,..
…a visitor to the isles heard the words and translated them into English and had the melody named after the nearby village where it had been discovered.
Now translated, it became the Christmas carol “Child In The Manger”.
The melody was also used…
…by Scottish Jesuit priest James Quinn, to accompany a couple of hymns which he’d adapted from the traditional Irish hymn “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”, which were entitled “Christ Be Beside Me” and “This Day God Gives Me”.
British Anglican priest Michael Saward also used the music as a companion to his “Baptized in Water” hymn.
It was in the mid 1920’s…
…when the music was heard in the Scottish Highlands, written down, and brought to the attention of 3 gentlemen.
The first was another English Anglican priest Percy Dearmer, the second was English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the third was English composer, conductor and theatre producer Martin Shaw, who at that time, all three were in the process of updating and expanding the original “English Hymnal” which, although popular when released in 1906, was soon deemed to be a bit too extreme, or ‘high church’ as many defined it.
The new edition, which was to be entitled ‘Songs Of Praise’ (after the hymn by J. Montgomery, “Songs of Praise the Angels Sang”), would be more accessible, especially for children, hence it would be used in schools up and down the British Isles.
It would also make use of more contemporary composers, such as Gustav Holst (Jupiter Suite anyone?), and the whole hymnal would also be expanded to encompass new works never published before, and this is where Eleanor comes in.
Editor Percy Dearmer recalled in the companion book ‘Songs of Praise Discussed’, that there was a need to have a hymn which gave thanks for each day, and so Eleanor was “asked to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune.”
Eleanor (or ‘Ellie’ to her family)…
…was the 2nd of 4 children, and the only daughter. All of whom would, in one form or another pick up a pen to create.
Her father Benjamin was a successful English novelist, playwright, printer, journalist and devotee of Charles Dickens, while Ellie’s mother Maggie was the daughter of acclaimed American actor Joe Jefferson (a gentleman who shares the same birthday as me in 1829), who’s signature role of Rip Van Winkle would delight audiences up until his death in 1905.
Ellie’s older brother Harry would be destined to become a composer and an influential teacher at the Royal Academy of Music. A position he would keep for over 45 years.
As for her two younger brothers, Joseph would become an English crime and mystery novelist, while Herbert would become a presenter of revues in London’s West End, a theatre critic, lyricist, librettist, playwright, theatre manager and researcher.
Eleanor herself, a small, quiet, shy girl…
…was challenged by poor eyesight, and endured ill health at a young age.
She was Home Educated, and would enjoy hours up in the attic, surrounded by books, and with encouragement from her father, began to write from the age of 5 years; and it’s probably this memory which gave her the title for a collection of short stories for children later in life, ‘The Little Bookroom’.
She wrote other stories for younger audiences, with her most successful series featuring the character Martin Pippin. Drawing most of her inspiration from family holidays in France, and also the Sussex countryside, where the family moved from the literary and theatrical circles of London during World War I.
Throughout her life, Eleanor won countless awards, including the first international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1956. This biennial award from the International Board on Books for Young People, now considered the highest lifetime recognition available to creators of children’s books, which soon came to be called the Little Nobel Prize.
There is even an award named after her.
The Children’s Book Circle, a society of publishers, present the Eleanor Farjeon Award annually to individuals or organisations whose commitment and contribution to children’s books is deemed to be outstanding.
Actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator, and writer Stephen Fry has compared Eleanor’s poems for children alongside those of A. A. Milne and Lewis Carroll as “hardy annuals from the garden of English verse.”
Among her close knit group of friends, were such names as the novelist D. H. Lawrence, and American poet Robert Frost.
Who better to write a poem, accessible for all to sing, young and old alike, as a hymn.
When the ‘Song of Praise’ hymnal finally published in 1931,..
…it became an instant hit, with schools and churches alike taking stock of the new volume, and school assembly halls and church congregations alike, singing the praises (quite literally) up and down the country.
Eleanor had entitled her hymn “Thanks for a Day”.
For me,..
…this tune gets slightly tainted by the fact that I used to have to sing this song with all the other 5 and 6 year olds in Primary School assembly, along with other songs like “All things Bright and Beautiful” and “I Can Sing a Rainbow”.
I’m sure the teacher’s loved it, but me, not so much.
Anyway, that stuff is 5 years in my future.
26 years later,..
…in 1957, while writing an anthology entitled “The Children’s Bells”, Eleanor would alter the lyrics slightly. For example, the final lines “God’s re-creation, Of the new day!” would become “Spring’s re-creation, Of the First Day!”
However, when it came to Cat Steven’s decision to record the hymn, he chose her original interpretation from 1931.
Cat himself had already had quite a spiritual journey so far.
Not just in his music career, but also in his young life up to this point.
Similar to Eleanors early life, Cat (born as Steven Demetre Georgiou, on the 21st of July 1948) lived with the theatre in London nearby.
His family lived above a restaurant his parents ran, called the ‘Moulin Rouge’, situated at the north end of Shaftsbury Avenue, and a stones throw from an area full of theatres, cinemas, clubs, shops, hotels and restaurants.
He’s half Greek Cypriot on his father’s side, and half Swedish on his mother’s side.
The youngest of 3 children, one sister called Anita, and a brother named Gordon. He also had a half brother George, from his father’s first marriage.
After his initial success…
…from around 1966, where he had been making quite an impression on the charts, and also living it up in London’s swinging club scene, the pressures of fame and too much partying soon took hold, and he ended up contracting a serious case of tuberculosis, which struck him down and left him laying in a hospital bed for 3 months on some painfully serious medication, before having to take a further year out to convalesce.
With nowhere else to go but inwards, the whole scary incident, plus the gift of a book entitled ‘The Secret Path’ by Paul Brunton, set him on a new road of self healing and transformation that would end up, not just changing his outlook on his entire existence, but also a new way on how he looked at life around him and his music writing.
As he said himself…
“I dropped everything for a time and then suddenly I realised what I wanted to do. […] I wanted to do it again, only I wanted to do it right. I wanted to do it truthfully… before, it was all messed up – I didn’t have my ideals right – I was completely upside down.”
As the world turned towards the new decade, so Cat Stevens, reinvigorated, with enough stored up new musical material (from his recent experiences) to span at least 3 successive albums, was ready to share his new found musical landscape with everyone.
And now, a couple of years on,..
…this is where I find him, around the time of 1970’s album number 3.
The recording of this 3rd single release from his latest album,..
…featuring from the outset, a young Rick Wakeman on piano, first had to overcome a slight problem.
From beginning to end, the song so far only took around 45 seconds to play. Nowhere near long enough for a 3 minute song, let alone a prospective single release..
While Cat was mulling over what he could do to stretch the song out, Rick decided to carry on with his own work-in-progress. A little project he was crafting at the time, which would eventually become his debut album ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’.
It was while he was tinkering about with ‘Catherine Howard’ (not literally you understand) that Cat over hears the motif at the very beginning and asks Rick politely if he could play that at the beginning of the song.
“Well, …not really” says Rick.
“Why not”? asks Cat.
“Because, it’s going to be on my bloody album”! exclaims Rick.
Sensing he’s not going to get far with this conversation, Cat decides to change tack, and adding a bit of diplomacy into the equation, softly asks Rick in a more seductive tone “Well,…could you just tweak it a little for me…just a little, just so no one would notice”?
Rick, obviously not being able to resist the dark pleading eyes of Cat, accepts the idea and so spends a couple of minutes coming up with a variation completely unrecognisable from his effort which would eventually appear on his forthcoming album.
I mean, you wouldn’t even think it was the same song….would you?
With Rick’s motif…
…now tacked onto the front of the song, Cat asks how long the new song is now, to which the reply back is 1 minute 10 seconds.
After pondering over this for a short while, it’s decided to get Rick to play it again at the end of the track, and also in the middle, after each verse. Then Cat decides to repeat the first verse again at the end, and voila! The song comes in at 3 minutes 20 seconds.
For his efforts, Rick walks away with a big thank you, a handshake, and a grand total of £10 expected into his bank account, which ended up taking about 37 years to clear.
For a song which, in a previous life, had come into the world as a Christmas hymn,..
…the timing couldn’t have been more apt, charting on Boxing Day, as everyone was getting over their Christmas Day.
1971 was coming to an end and 1972 was just beginning.
Throughout January, it climbed steadily upwards, and managed to break the Top 10, where it sat at No.9 for a week between the 23rd and 29th of January 1972 before beginning it’s descent, back through the chart, dropping out at the end of March after completing 13 weeks.
The “A” Side
The “B” Side
Cat Stevens – Morning Has Broken (TV Performance)
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