If there has ever been a more beautiful, poignant or heartbreaking song about the yearning for a lost love, I’ve never heard it. Richard Thompson has written two of what I believe are the finest ballads put to music in “Beeswing” and “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”. Both send this old soul on a journey of melancholy remembrance of what our youth leaves on the walls of our hearts.
I have always wondered who was the inspiration for this song. This is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard, and it's a joy to discover who started the journey of this song. Peace 💚
One of my youthful friends of times gone by... a pretty big Trance DJ back in the day, big clubs filled out etc... many, many, stupid silly nights doing stuff we all shouldn't in the late 90's early 00's... A trance DJ if you get the picture... Anyway... there i was staying at his and his wife's house before a good mutual friend of ours wedding... this time without any "medicinal" additions....nice and mature.... my ol' trance DJ pal puts this song on out the blue, never heard it before.... one of the saddest yet most beautiful love songs ever written.
When I listen to this song it changes my breath. I feel soul soothing peace. What a beautiful story and to have a rare free woman front and centre is an inspiration,
I think a big part of this beautiful song deals with the heavy price of being a free woman. I don't think Richard Thompson choose this sort of lifestyle for himself.
Been watching a lot of Toutube posts on Slab City and I reckon many a Beeswing Girl would travel there. Some say rejected by society. Some say rejecting of society. To me I would never have the courage to break free and live on the road but I love this song has a female troubadour. I love that there is an alternate image of womanhood, after all Life exacts the same price from all of us one day or another. Thank you for your thoughtful response. What a tune eh?
I suppose I found my way to Richard Thompson by finding Anne Briggs' Feed the Dog album. This is a great song because (among other things) it's an allegory of youth, I think.
Read Thompson's memoir of the era. This song was influenced by two things. Conversations with his friend Sandy Denny about people of independent and enigmatic spirit like Anne Briggs and an older itinerant working man and his story of loving one woman and losing her.
Yeh, I read that as well but over the years he has given a variety of people as the inspiration for 'Beewsing'. Briggs does feature in all of them as she does here in a quote attributed to Thompson. He's entitled to muddy the waters I suppose whether it be deliberate or not. after all it's his song.... "RICHARD THOMPSON: I wrote the song Beeswing kind of about her. There was a thing in the 60s where people dropped out to live in the country and get their heads together. People like Vashti Bunyan and Annie Briggs: these wild, free spirited women. They were quite inspirational. Anne was great. I saw her a couple of times in folk clubs, but the only times I only actually ever met her she had drunk herself into unconsciousness.”
@Samuel Chambers the line "and a wolfhound at her feet" is certainly a reference to Anne's self titled 1971 album, featuring her walking with a wolfhound.
@@thatssamhesgreat It is a great song, and if Richard creates a story that it is inspired by a quirky and enigmatic singer of the era, that just adds to the legend.
Songs are rarely about one thing or person. Lots of things go into them and ultimately you are creating a thing that is independent of whatever triggered it off. Sometimes you see different things in them at different times. I dont think its a case of him muddying the waters. It must get a bit tiresome having to explain a work of creativity.
Let's face it, Anne Briggs was an enigmatic soul. After all, I remember hearing that her boyfriend back in the day was Johnny Moynihan of Sweeney's Men and Planxty. Regardless, great song by Richard.
Interesting…I read Thompson’s Beeswing bio. Although he doesn’t mention Moynihan, it seems to me that the whole song is written from Moynihan’s POV, as he was her 60s travelling companion who “busked around the market towns…” with her and had his own reputation for wildness, which perhaps explains why he was only briefly in Planxty and De Danaan. Moynihan is still alive and performing, and Briggs is alive and tucked away in the north somewhere.
I can relate a bit to this wonderful song, although I don't think that Richard Thompson actually had a relationship with Anne Briggs--perhaps more of a wish to have had one with her. Twenty-five years or so ago, I had a mad crush on a local female keyboard player and singer who had been playing band gigs for over a decade when I was starting out playing in public. I don't think that she was older than I was, although she seemed to be because she had been playing onstage much longer than I had. She would sometimes show up at the same blues jams as me and I kept hoping that we would get to play a set together and maybe get to talking, but it never happened, and the most that I ever said to her was "Hi", or some other innocuous salutation. She passed away a couple of years ago, and I'm still playin' the blues. . .
Yup, in his recently published autobiography he makes clear that though he had known Annie Briggs by reputation he never actually met her. He does say that the song was partly inspired by (the imagined) Annie though.
@@thatssamhesgreat Hardly a 'yup' then. Implausible speculation (and projection) on Rick's part - given Thompson said that he only ever encountered Briggs twice and on both occasions she was drunk and unconscious.
@@flaneur5560 'Yup' to the fact, as Rick Lee says, Thompson didn't have a relationship with Briggs. For God's sake, at least read a comment before sticking your oar into a discussion to reiterate points already made and agreed upon.
@@thatssamhesgreat I questioned the 'Yup' because taking Rick's post as a whole, he supposed - without any evidence other than his own autobiographical unrequited passion - that Thompson hankered after a relationship with Briggs. If you agree with that, that's just your imagination working overtime.
@@flaneur5560 I don't think it's wise to be so adamantly opposed to such an innocuous assumption. We are discussing art here, not proofs or theories that need to be backed up by evidence. The discussion takes a different tone. Speculation is fair game. After all, this whole song is supposing, "without any evidence" what a past with someone like Anne Briggs might have been like based solely on the unrelated story of a working man's lost love. Besides, I don't think it's that offensive to suppose that he might have wanted a relationship with Anne when he sings such a passionate song about an imagined past with someone like her. If you're going to throw out Rick's story and speculation, you might as well also throw out this song, since both are speculation based on unrelated stories, and examples of "imagination working overtime." Dismissing "imagination working overtime" is dismissing most art.
Beeswing was not inspired by Anne Briggs but by the stories Sandy Denny told about Anne Briggs. These stories triggered off ideas in RT's head. That's quite the difference.
I had a girlfriend once that fits the description of this fabulous song. But can anyone enlighten me as to what does he mean , they were burning babies, burning flags??
