Sandy Denny

Track	Album
Who Knows Where The Time Goes?	Early Home Recordings
Fotheringay	Early Home Recordings
The Sea	Fotheringay
Late November	The North Star Grassman And The Ravens
It’ll Take A Long Time	Sandy
Listen, Listen	Sandy
Solo (John Peel Session)	I’ve Always Kept A Unicorn
By The Time It Gets Dark (Demo)	Rendezvous (Deluxe Edition)
Full Moon (Demo)	Rendezvous (Deluxe Edition)
One Way Donkey Ride (Demo)	I’ve Always Kept A Unicorn

I was first introduced to Sandy Denny at the local refuse dump. The Park Street dump, just south of St Albans, was where a record pressing plant in north London disposed of its seconds and surplus stock – dumped in cardboard boxes. While some of the records were indeed unplayable, many were in pristine condition, with the odd poorly printed sleeve or slightly squint label. The plant was used by some of the indie labels of the day such as Island, Trojan and Charisma – so Sunday afternoons would often find the dump visited by teenagers such as myself, equipped with spades.

Once you’d dug down through the rotten food and nappies, you’d hit a rich seam of vinyl. For financially challenged schoolkids, this was a good way of building a music collection, as long as you didn’t mind smelling of fish and excrement for a few days. And I didn’t.

I’d already excavated some great albums by Free, King Crimson, The Nice and others, when I came across a record called Fotheringay, its sleeve bearing a painting of five musicians wearing mock Tudor costumes holding electric guitars. Two of those musicians were future husband and wife, Trevor Lucas and Sandy Denny. It all looked a bit folkie, and I nearly tucked it back in its pungent grave. Folk wasn’t my thing, but I took it home and gave it a listen.

The second track on the album I found utterly mesmerising. The Sea is a beautiful, beguiling and meditative song. It expresses a sense of melancholy that I had not experienced in the music I was listening to at that time. In the age of progressive rock, then later punk, Fotheringay was my guilty secret.

It’s only in the last few years that I’ve explored Sandy’s work more thoroughly and fully realised what a unique, exceptional and significant musician she was. Was it her voice, her songwriting, or her pioneering impact on British rock music that is her most significant legacy? It is, of course, all of these.

Island Records boss Chris Blackwell described her as “one of the great voices of the times”. Hers was a voice that other singers envied. Shirley Collins, described once as never one to throw compliments about lightly, said of Sandy: “At her best, she was the best”. One of today’s leading folk singers Rachel Unthank warned “Don’t listen to her! You’ll realise that the rest of us are wasting our time.”

Singer Linda Thompson is more descriptive in her praise. She described how Sandy’s ability to hold an audience was unparalleled, even when performing long, traditional ballads with no hooks, bridges, or choruses. “Sandy could sing a 43-verse ballad, and you would never, ever, ever once be bored,”Thompson recalled, marvelling at how Sandy made such songs captivating. Her secret lay in the way she delivered each line as though telling a story, almost speaking the lyrics while still holding on to the melody. “You believed every word, every syllable, every heartbeat,”Thompson explained, a testament to Sandy’s rare ability to make each performance feel emotionally truthful.

Along with her voice was her musical vision. She played a pivotal role in shaping the British folk rock movement. Joining Fairport Convention in 1968, she steered the band toward a traditional British folk repertoire – most notably on the genre‐defining album Liege & Lief.

Her understanding of tradition fed into her mastery as a brilliant songwriter. Green Gartside of Scritti Politti admires how Sandy “wrote some beautiful tunes, really inventively harmonised”. He also highlights the pioneering nature of her work: at a time when there were very few female songwriters, in either Britain or the U.S., Sandy was blazing a trail. “Her full recognition,” he adds, “is only now being established.”

Writing her obituary in Rolling Stone in 1978, Greil Marcus sums all this up: “In her strongest moments, no female singer of the last ten years could touch her. As with Van Morrison on Astral Weeks or Veedon Fleece, no one else could go where she went.”

Sandy Denny’s short life is too often described in terms of tragedy. But my focus here is where she took us with her music. It’s fair to call Sandy Denny melancholic in the sense that much of her songwriting is steeped in wistfulness, loss, and a quiet awareness of time passing. But she wasn’t only a writer of sadness – her melancholy was often tempered by warmth, beauty, and moments of light. Her melancholy wasn’t about wallowing – it was about seeing clearly. Her songs look life straight in the eye, acknowledging that beauty and sadness are always intertwined. So let us follow her musical and emotional journey through ten songs.

Sandy Denny’s career included being a member of Strawbs, Fairport Convention and Fotheringay, as well as being a solo artist. With one exception I’ve included only songs from her solo career or demos that she recorded for bands she was a member of.

1. Who Knows Where The Time Goes? (home recording)

Sandy Denny’s musical roots ran deep. Raised in Wimbledon, her Scottish grandmother, a singer of traditional Gaelic songs, encouraged Sandy’s talent. While learning classical piano at school, she also picked up guitar and began singing, blending the formal training with the folk traditions passed down to her. By the time she attended Kingston School of Art, Sandy was a regular on London’s folk circuit, performing a mix of American folk covers and Scottish ballads. What set her apart, however, wasn’t just her interpretation of others’ songs, but her own gift for songwriting, which quickly revealed itself as something extraordinary.

One of her most celebrated compositions, Who Knows Where The Time Goes, was written when she was nineteen. Rufus Wainwright has described it as “one of the saddest songs ever written”. Its timeless quality caught the attention of legends like Judy Collins and Nina Simone, both of whom covered the song.

The song is melodically simple, but emotionally vast: a youthful acceptance of life’s impermanence, philosophically reflective and wistfully timeless. Not the usual subject matter of aspiring teenage songwriters. While her remarkably mature songwriting drew admiration, it was her voice that left an equally deep impression. Her home recorded demo, which Judy Collins originally heard, displayed Sandy’s ability to distill universal feelings into an intimate, conversational vocal delivery – pure, warm, and direct.

We have a number of different versions of the song to enjoy – the original demo, the version she recorded with Strawbs, various live recordings, and of course the version recorded when she was with Fairport Convention on Unhalfbricking (1969) – her voice brilliantly framed by Richard Thompson’s guitar and Dave Swarbrick’s fiddle. But it’s the demo that we will go with.

2. Fotheringay (home recording)

Fotheringay takes the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, alone and awaiting her fate, and turns it into something universal: a meditation on captivity, isolation, and dignity. The song, which lent its name to her short-lived band, was written in 1968 and appears on Fairport Convention’s album What We Did On Our Holidays. We’ve chosen to use the home recording which is stark and beautiful, just her voice and guitar which is especially haunting: her voice is intimate, almost conspiratorial, as if she’s singing to herself. What moves me most is the sense that she isn’t simply telling Mary’s story, but finding her own reflection within it. Melancholy here is not despair but empathy – the recognition of oneself in another’s solitude.

Despite the sense of melancholy that infuses her music, and the acute lack of confidence that often stifled her creativity, there was a spirit of defiance that often came through. Her brief time with Strawbs was followed by her auditioning to join Fairport Convention, a band that, up to that point, had mostly emulated American acts like The Byrds. But before auditioning for them, she insisted that they audition for her: “You first. I want to hear something.” As Linda Thompson later said “For a girl in those days it was absolutely unheard of.”

3. The Sea

If Fotheringay looks inward, The Sea looks outward. The song flows with tidal rhythms, both musically and emotionally. It’s one of those rare songs where voice and imagery feel inseparable. The song reflects on isolation, illusion, and the unstoppable power of nature and time – the sea as both a force of truth and a symbol of change, a kind of acceptance of the ebb and flow of life. The melancholy here is elemental – beautiful, inevitable, and cleansing, like the tide itself.

The Sea is a highlight of the one album she recorded with her band Fotheringay in 1970, which itself marks a period of transition in her career and approach to songwriting. Over the course of the three albums she recorded with Fairport Convention, all released in 1969, the band set the foundation for British folk rock, creating a direction followed by Steeleye Span, Lindisfarne, and influencing bands such as Led Zeppelin. A tragic motor accident that year which killed the band’s drummer profoundly influenced their music, leading them toward a distinctly British sound rooted in traditional folk elements. Released in December 1969, Liege & Lief is considered the pinnacle of Fairport’s legacy and a defining record of the British folk rock movement. It abandoned American influences in favour of reinterpreting traditional British and Celtic folk songs.

4. Late November

Late November is perhaps Sandy’s most cinematic song, full of streams, temples and phosphorous sands. It captures that moment when autumn slips into winter – the warmth gone, the world waiting. There’s a real sense of foreboding in the song, but it’s never melodramatic. There’s melancholy in her restraint: she doesn’t lament the cold, she inhabits it and embraces the darkness. The song feels like knowing something precious is about to end, and singing it softly so it lasts a little longer.

The song appears on her first solo album in 1971 – The North Star Grassman And The Ravens. In terms of versions, we are spoiled for choice as there are demos, a version recorded with Fotheringay, radio recording, and her only TV appearance. But we will go with the version that appears on her album that features Richard Thompson on guitar. This song is melancholy as foreknowledge, sensing loss before it happens, and written about a prophetic dream she had before Fairport’s fatal motor accident.

5. It’ll Take A Long Time

The early 1970s marked the period when she appeared to join the ranks of the rock aristocracy. She was twice voted Best British Female Singer in the Melody Maker readers’ poll, became Led Zeppelin’s only guest vocalist through her duet with Robert Plant on The Battle Of Evermore(Led Zeppelin IV), and sang the part of the nurse on the symphonic recording of The Who’s Tommy.

Despite this, she never made the commercial breakthrough that her remarkable talents justified. She was lauded by fellow musicians, but less so by the album buying public. While her 1972 album Sandy had disappointing sales it is filled with her transcendent songwriting and faultless musicianship, especially It’ll Take A Long Time, which expresses the slow endurance of grief or emotional pain, the way time stretches endlessly when you’re lost or heartbroken. There’s also gentleness in the acceptance that healing comes, if at all, only with time.

As in all of her songs, there’s something deeply personal being expressed. While her public profile appeared enviable, she was struggling with direction, trying to balance her artistry, her relationships, and the pressures of fame. So we could interpret the song as her way of processing the disillusionment that came after early success: when the dream of artistic and personal fulfillment gave way to uncertainty and emotional exhaustion.

6. Listen, Listen

Listen, Listen, also from Sandy (1972) feels like a song written in conversation with silence. There’s something timeless about its stately rhythm and lyrical restraint. It could just as easily be a 17th-century lament as a 1970s ballad. Her voice carries a sense of reverence, as though she’s addressing someone who can no longer answer. The arrangement turns melancholy into ceremony, lifting sadness into grace. Listen, Listen isn’t about loss so much as the beauty that remains after loss: the ache of remembering.

7. Solo (John Peel session)

Her 1974 album Like An Old Fashioned Waltz performed even less well than Sandy. It opens with Solo, one of her most profound and revealing songs. It’s introspective, poetic with some beautifully light touches.

The song is a witty yet poignant reflection on loneliness, fame, and the difficulty of true connection. Using the idea of “playing solo” both musically and metaphorically, she comments on the shallow chatter, artificial glamour, and emotional isolation of her life and celebrity. By the song’s end, her insight becomes universal – everyone, in their own way, is performing alone – making Solo both a self-portrait of an artist’s solitude and a timeless commentary on the human condition.

As with all of her songs, we can read it in various ways. Some hear beneath its wordplay, deep sadness and regret. But we can also hear its melancholy here as less about loneliness and more about the price of staying true to one’s nature; rather than a lament, Solois perhaps a declaration of identity, proud and unflinching.

8. By The Time It Gets Dark (demo)

By The Time It Gets Dark was originally recorded in 1974 but not included on any album during her lifetime. It feels like a farewell, though not a tragic one. Her voice is hushed, almost conversational, as if she’s taking us gently toward the inevitable dusk. There’s sadness here, yes, but also clarity. The melancholy is transformed into understanding. By the time it gets dark, she seems to say, we will have learned to see in the half-light.

9. Full Moon (demo)

Full Moon was recorded in 1975 for her final studio album but never included. I adore this song. As a lyric it’s up there with Ira Gershwin and Lorenz Hart as one of 20th century’s great love songs.

Full Moon is about love, memory, and emotional continuity; its persistence even in absence. Set beneath the image of moonlight, the song drifts between past and present, remembering a first meeting and yearning for her lover. The Moon becomes a symbol of constancy amid change. Her tone is intimate yet haunted, recalling guidance once given and how connection rescued her from confusion. By the end, she imagines pain and loneliness dissolving, leaving only the pure reflection of love. In Full Moon, melancholy is expressed as transcendence – facing darkness with clarity, calm and love. This is about as perfect as any song can ever get.

10. One Way Donkey Ride (demo)

There is a studio version that appears on her final album Rendezvous in 1976 but here, again, we’re using a demo. The album has been criticised for being over-produced and reflects her difficulties in finding a musical approach that was both commercially successful and honest to her musical vision. Compounding this was a fast-changing musical landscape in which the genres of folk rock and prog that she was associated with were becoming eclipsed by punk and new wave. This, together with problems with her relationship and the continuing crises of confidence that had bedevilled her, was sending her down an increasingly self-destructive path which led tragically to her death at the age of 31. By this time, many of those who had been mesmerised by her voice and songs had moved on to Patti, Siouxsie and others. Me included.

It’s 1986 and I’m sitting in the function room of a pub in Coventry watching a band who I’d got to know through one of its members, Martin Jenkins, who was a friend of mine. Other members of Whippersnapper included Dave Swarbrick, Chris Leslie and Kev Dempsey. They were a brilliant and engaging live act (as a couple of YouTube clips testify), as part of which Kev would lead on One Way Donkey Ride, that he would always introduce with a moving tribute to its author.

The song is Sandy Denny’s poetic reflection on life’s journey of choices. We all travel life’s road only once, carrying our hopes and burdens toward an unseen end. Through desert imagery – “oasis of love”, “sweet water of life” – she contrasts spiritual nourishment with the thirst of those who are “poor ones”, the people who strive, hope, and believe yet are denied fulfillment. The demo strips away the glossy production of the later album version, leaving only her weary, luminous voice. What’s striking is the mixture of resignation and wit – she understands the absurdity of life’s one-way path but sings about it with warmth. This is melancholy with a smile.

Thank you Kev for introducing me to it.

Sandy Denny – A Pioneer

When Sandy Denny began her musical career, there were few paths for her to follow. Women songwriters were rare, and women singers were expected to interpret the words of men. Folk and rock existed in separate worlds – the latter still confined by blues-based traditions – and women were seldom seen as innovators, with the exception of mavericks like Nina Simone.

Yet Sandy Denny was determined. She possessed a clear musical vision and pursued it with energy and conviction over a brief but dazzling decade. In that time, she created a body of work that remains extraordinary. At her best, she could write and perform songs with the honesty and poetry of Dylan, while at other moments her wit, grace, and melodic sophistication recalled the finest of the Great American Songbook.

Through her work with Fairport Convention, she helped shape one of those rare hinge points in musical history – opening up an entirely new genre and sensibility in British folk rock. But the same artist who could conjure such magic could also drink Led Zeppelin under the table, fighting her own demons of self-doubt and volatility.

Her decade of music-making left a legacy of remarkable songs. I’ve chosen ten to highlight here, but they all reveal a unifying thread: Sandy Denny’s melancholy is active, not passive – a perception sharpened by feeling rather than a surrender to sadness. There’s youthful wonder (Who Knows Where The Time Goes?, The Sea), empathic imagination (Fotheringay), foreboding and endurance (Late November, One Way Donkey Ride), solitude and defiance (Solo), compassion and grace (It’ll Take A Long Time, Listen, Listen), and finally, reflection and transcendence (Full Moon, By The Time It Gets Dark).

Her voice and vision still resonate: a reminder that the most profound melancholy can also be luminous, alive and simply beautiful.

Sandy Denny Official Website

Section dedicated to Sandy Denny at Mainly Norfolk

Sandy Denny Fan Site – packed with info

Sandy Denny Fan Site – lyrics, recordings, pictures

Sandy Denny: A Complete (?) Discography

“I’ve Always Kept A Unicorn: The Biography of Sandy Denny”
(Mick Houghton, Faber & Faber, 2016)

Celebrating Sandy Denny – a blog (2007-2016)

Mike Press is a music and social history writer who lives in Scotland. He is one half of the Walk on the Wild Side Soho music project.

TopperPost #1,171