The Bottom Line:
Overproduced song with terrible background vocals - and JM has left the building
Bridget herself liked the album version better.
Fly High is a terrific song and apparently record company officials thought it had hit potential. So they went for a total overhaul in instrumentation, which was not a good idea.
The brown blurb below was probably printed on the original inner sleeve:
BRIDGET ST. JOHN
Side One: "Fly High"
Side Two: "There's a place I know"/ "Suzanne"
Release: Feb. 11th
Production: John Anthony
Four hard years of motorways, railway stations and performances have matured Bridget's singing and writing to an astonishing degree, and this record is evidence that she is ready to take her place among the great singer-songwriters of our time.
On Dandelion - Naturally.
Nigel Cross wrote about this song:
However, one song really deserves to be singled out, the majestic Fly High, lyrically based around a fragment of Robert Louis Stevenson poetry, taken from A Child's Garden Of Verses, one of her favourite books when she was growing up. Bridget sounds positively inspired, her voice soaring in a way it's seldom done since, buoyed by John Martyn's spacey, echo-plexed guitar runs, which will remind old fans of the genuinely exciting solo shows he was doing at this time. The powers-that-be at the record company also saw some hit potential in this song and it was re-recorded as the album's 45 chaser and featured girl backing vocals, arranged by some-time Beatles collaborator Richard Hewson, though Bridget still maintains their voices are 'a little too church-like' against her own.
Track table | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
nr | track | written | time | comment |
A1 | Fly High | Bridget St. John | 3.29 | Overproduced with disaster choir |
B1 | There's A Place I Know | Bridget St. John | 2.38 | Rare uptempo track with French lullaby intro: Au Clair De La Lune |
B2 | Suzanne | Leonard Cohen | 5.31 | No budget production |
Mold numbers
2001280 A//3 1 1 3 and BILBO
2001280 B//1 ▽420 11 6 and 04
'Bilbo' is referring to cutting engineer Denis Blackham.