Vashti Bunyan is a musician, and like Gary Wilson, she drifted into anonymity after an unsuccessful venture to establish her music in the folk and pop world. The content of her story is a bit different, however, and it takes place about 10 years earlier. Vashti had been going to art school but soon was either kicked out or left on her own accord-whatever the case- because she wanted to focus on writing songs and performing them. The Rolling Stone’s manager Andrew Loog Oldham discovered her playing at a pub one night and promised he would make her dreams of being recognized as an influential musician come true. She recorded a few singles between 1964 and 1967 and finally released a full length, just another diamond day, in 1970, which did not get much attention and was quickly dropped. No one was yet ready for Vashti’s music, it seemed, and Vashti, disenchanted with her surroundings, embarked on a traditional caravan with her partner to live in a commune with Donovan, of all people. Though he had already left when they arrived two years after the genesis of their bon voyage, Vashti lived in what she calls “no-where” for over twenty years, not really aware of the slowly burgeoning popularity of her LP throughout certain threads of the underground. As was the case with Gary’s rediscovery, Vashti Bunyan’s own musical unearthing can be ascribed to ravenous record collectors and musicians who search for aberrant sources to ignite inspiration. With interest from musicians like Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Animal Collective, Vashti Bunyan resurrected her career in the early 2000s (like Gary, might I add), engaged in multiple collaborations and musical partnerships, began releasing music again, and currently tours all over the world. Her collection of singles and demos, Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind, spans the period between 1964 to 1967, before her first LP. This album is absolutely enchanting, as I hear the 18 year old girl singing songs of love and female independence against a strange wintry backdrop that seems to symbolize idleness and the compulsion to reflect a broken heart without choice. However blue and grey we may imagine this music to express, it emanates an uncanny warmth that resonates with the woman in me.
In all of her lyrics, an eloquent maturity is evident while at the same time her youth and naivety are also perceptible only because every woman has probably felt her encapsulated feelings at least once in their lives. Of all the preoccupations that Vashti presents in this collection of songs from her early days, issues of independence, mobility, idleness, and the right to knowledge in the context of womanhood as defined by her stipulations in matters of love and loss appear to be the ascendant themes in her music. Vashti does not want to be dictated by the whims of others; she wants to travel emotionally and geographically on her own schedule. In the raga inspired “I want to be alone”, for instance, demonstrates her restlessness and tendency to feel confined in relationships, as she explains that sometimes she just wants to be alone. She sings, “don’t make me stay and walk aimlessly hand in hand. Just today set me free, let me be alone”, likening herself to a caged animal. In “I’d like to walk around in your mind”, she associates the desire for mobility with the ability to destroy the lover that destroyed a part of her. Although her lyrics are somewhat playful, her ultimate goal is to walk around in the person’s most private cerebral areas and destroy any self assurance that person harbors so closely to make himself superior to her. The ability to traverse this man’s mind and unveil his secrets would empower her subject him to the vulnerability that she has felt because of him. She cannot take already established norms for granted, and asks “how do I know” in multiple ways to illustrate that her place as a woman is not resolved in her mind, and that she will not sit passively and accept the ideas being given to her by others. She asks, “why should you say I can’t love any man, have his children and still be free?”, alluding to the multiple protests surrounding the time period and insisting that she should be able to live life the way she wants- quite revolutionary for her time, and likewise not quite accepted by the mainstream because it was just a little too early, although I don’t know why any woman wouldn’t have championed these songs, but then again, I didn’t live in these times, and perhaps Vashti could have been misunderstood.
As much as Vashti praises mobility, she also dreads the idleness of mourning the loss of a lover. “Winter is Blue” exemplifies being unable to move forward because of constantly remembering yesterday’s love in the wake of today’s loneliness. “Girl’s song in Winter” likewise exclaims, “I was in love when I was young and I have not been free” because of the baby that her lover left her, along with the burden of remembering. “17 pink sugar elephants” may be a metaphor of idleness, for the elephants are only consumables for little children to have during tea breaks and they “have two eyes but…couldn’t see me there” and “had four legs but couldn’t go anywhere”. Perhaps these pink sugar elephants are women. In her eyes women are strong as elephants, but they are fragile and sweet because they are made out of sugar, and their color, pink, presents a stigma to the rest of the world, rendering them almost inanimate. Their abilities are very limited, as their purpose is for children to enjoy. The tone of this song is extraordinarily sad and beautiful, and it quite possibly presents a coded series of conditions that address her own fears and circumstances.
This collection of songs and demos was written by Vashti Bunyan (with the exception of the Rolling Stones cover) mostly when she was 18 years old. I wish I would have discovered this album when I was younger, because I am certain I would have realized so many emotions with her as she expressed her spectrum of ideals and wishes. While she wants to be independent and casual with her relationships, she still desires one person to love and respect her. As she praises productivity and the ability to move without being attached, her anxiety is obvious in songs about stillness and retrospection. What resonates most with me, however, is the overwhelming skepticism in her love songs, and her reluctance to give herself fully because of a colossal pain which occurred early in her flowering years. All she wants is to be free of having to rely on others for happiness. Her music is sensitive and the images of winter convey a seriousness and a demand for esteem in opposition to summer time flings and love’s fleeting warmth.
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