Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind (Singles And Demos 1964 To 1967)

Despite the vintage of these recordings, Vashti Bunyan is a fresh voice. The "Train Song" is especially appealing, and was used recently in a TV commercial, which is where I first heard her sing. If you were a fan of folk rock in the 60's, you would probably put this CD on the same shelf as Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Judy Collins.

Vashti Bunyan's first and second albums were released, uh, thirty-five years apart. Meaning it could have been more than three decades before we heard from her again.

Fortunately such is not the case. "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Singles and Demos 1964-1967" collects scattered odds and ends of Bunyan's early work, and you'd really never have known that it's from decades ago -- these two discs are full of timeless pop and pretty little folk songs.

It kicks off with the title track, a smooth and catchy concoction of strings, cymbals, guitar and brazen horn. The lyrics aren't exactly perky, though: "Why does the sky turn grey every night?/Sun rise again in time/Why do you think of the first love you had?/Some things just stick in your mind," Bunyan sings in a sweet, slightly off-kilter voice.

Afterwards, she murmurs through the soft tambourine folk of the "I Want To Be Alone" -- call it Garbo folk -- and the lo-fi acoustic ballad "Train Song." Then she glides effortlessly into a string of gentle folk melodies, flavoured with quirky instrumentals and bittersweet, haunting lyrics. And, of course, pioneering freak-folk like the gloriously offbeat "Coldest Night of The Year."

And the second disc is made up of taped 1964 demos -- lo-fi, stripped-down little guitar ballads with no musical ornamentation other than Bunyan's lovely voice. She recites the title, starts gently playing a little acoustic guitar, and singing in a hauntingly sad voice.

You can tell how rough these demos were: "Leave Me" starts with Bunyan reciting the title, followed by a man saying something incoherent to her. She says it more loudly, and chuckles self-consciously.

Admittedly, this release isn't perfect -- the aged tapes from the sixties have shown their age, and despite careful remastering they sometimes sound tinny or crackly. Not Bunyan's fault, though -- her voice and beautiful lyrics are absolutely stunning and heartbreaking, and her instrumentation definitely verifies that she is the Godmother of Freak-folk.

And even in the crackliest songs her little guitar shines out, playing wistful soft-edged melodies. In some of the earlier ones, it's festooned with other sounds -- sweeps of violin, xylophone, trumpets, countryish harmonica, a touch of sitar, cymbals, tambourine, and occasionally even some solid drums. But none of these detract from the sadness of her music, or the power that that one acoustic guitar gives her.

Her voice is the real highlight, though -- you can tell it hasn't been tinkered with even when the tapes were remastered, because she occasionally sounds slightly off-key. So her soft, fairylike voice has a sweetness and purity that most pop singers can't achieve with computer help -- and even more important, her vocals are saturated with a sense of longing, loneliness, and love.

But her lyrics are the absolute breaking point -- every one is a gorgeous, bittersweet little poem. They're evocative ("Train wheels beating, the wind in my eyes") and painfully emotional, full of faithless lovers, men who don't love you as you love them, and uncertainty. Even in the most cheerful of her songs ("I'd sit there in the sun of the things I like about you/I'd sing my songs and find out just what they mean to you") there's a sad edge.

The crackles and age of "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Singles and Demos 1964-1967" can't hide the bittersweet purity of Vashti Bunyan's music. Broken hearts, lovers and sorrows -- absolutely stunning.

FINALLY! Highly recommended collection of the mid-60's Vashti masterpieces-I had only heard the 45 that was officially out-the amazingly ULTRA Andrew Loog Oldham constructed/Jagger-Richard written (Mick did some percussion on this as well) Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind/flip...this collection has it all-including demos recently unearthed by Vashti and available to the world...Vashti is her own artist, so I don't want to make comparisons-but if I had to-and you're not familiar with her compostions-she has many parallels to Marianne Faithfull's Decca/London era and the early to mid-60's Francois Hardy...I HIGHLY recommend this-love her voice and style...great packaging also-like a mini-album...

After hearing the bonus tracks on the "Just Another Diamond Day" CD along w/ a couple of other older tracks on compilations, I thought "someone really needs to compile all the early Vashti tracks on a single disc".
Less than a year later, the good folks at Fatcat Records heard my wish and did me one better ! This is a wonderful 2 disc collection of Ms. Bunyan's pre-JADD singles and b-sides along w/ a number of wonderful demo tracks and a complete CD of home demos.
I wont go into detail trying to describe the music since there are sound samples included in this listing.
Standout tracks include the studio version of "Winter Is Blue" and the Jagger-Richards penned "Some Thing Just Stick In Your Mind" but, really everything here is must-have material for Vashti Bunyan fans and will help make the wait for the follow-up to 2005's "Lookaftering" bearable.