A Very Cellular Song

"A Very Cellular Song"
Song by the Incredible String Band
from the album The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
Released	March 1968
Recorded	December 1967 at Sound Techniques, London
Genre	Psychedelic folk
Length	13:09
Label	Elektra / WEA
Songwriter(s)	Mike Heron
Producer(s)	Joe Boyd

"A Very Cellular Song" is a song by the Incredible String Band, written by Mike Heron, released on the 1968 album The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter.

Composition and musical structure

The longest number on the album, the song is a 13-minute reflection on life, love, and amoebas, whose complex structure incorporates a Bahamian spiritual ("I Bid You Goodnight", originally recorded by the Pinder Family[1][2]). Heron next sings a passage beginning "Who would lose and who would bruise", whose tune is to be reprised later on in the piece. This is followed by an ode to mitosis, sung from the point of view of an amoeba, introduced by Licorice McKechnie saying the words "Amoebas are very small". The last part of "A Very Cellular Song", "May the Long Time Sun Shine", is sometimes wrongly referred to as a Sikh hymn or an Irish blessing, but is in fact an original song written by Mike Heron. The numerous parts of the song are woven together by Heron's harpsichord sections and Williamson's instrumental passages on the gimbri and Jew's harp. Heron later said of the song, "All it was was a trip, and that was the music I was listening to, that and interspersed with Radio 4, bits of plays, people talking to each other, and I happened to be listening to the Pinder Family before I started."[3]

Commentary

Writer Dan Lander described the song as Mike Heron's masterpiece. He wrote:[4]

"Weaving between styles as divergent as Bahamian funerary music, East Indian incantation and ancient Celtic mysticism, 'A Very Cellular Song' represents a high point in the band's creativity and surely influenced a host of others including Led Zeppelin, the Who and Lou Reed. Handclaps, kazoo, harpsichord and pipes intermingle and morph into each other. If this sounds like dissonance and chaos, it is. However, it holds together and in the end conveys a powerful range of human emotion through pain and joy and back again."

Personnel

Mike Heron – lead vocals, harpsichord, guitar, hammer dulcimer
Robin Williamson – harmony and background vocals, oud, gimbri, jew's harp, whistle, percussion
Dolly Collins – flute organ
Licorice – vocals

Cover versions

The amoeba section was covered by actor Nigel Planer, in character as 'Neil the Hippy' from Television show The Young Ones on the LP Neil's Heavy Concept Album, released in 1984.[3]

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gollark: Releasing apiobees into apionet.

gollark: You utter conflict free replicated data types?

gollark: Why not just use a hypercube?

gollark: No. Deploying apiobureaucratosemiomemetics.

References

The Bahamas: The Real Bahamas in Music and Song Nonesuch Records site
Waterson : Carthy | Keeping it in the Family - Sleep on Beloved
"The Incredible String Band- The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter". Making Time. December 1999. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
Lander, Dan (2010). Music Is Rapid Transportation: From the Beatles to Xenakis. p. 164. Retrieved 30 June 2014.

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[1] The Bahamas: The Real Bahamas in Music and Song Nonesuch Records site

[2] Waterson : Carthy | Keeping it in the Family - Sleep on Beloved

[makingtime-3] "The Incredible String Band- The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter". Making Time. December 1999. Retrieved 29 December 2010.

[4] Lander, Dan (2010). Music Is Rapid Transportation: From the Beatles to Xenakis. p. 164. Retrieved 30 June 2014.