Bill Fay’s From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock reviewed: revelatory early demos from the cult singer-songwriter
Due to the nature of archaeological practice, it’s usually the case that the makers of “forgotten” recordings are no longer around to enjoy the acclaim that greets their rediscovery. Folk-pop artist Bill Fay, however, very much was. The story of the revival of his career, originally launched (by Deram) in 1967 and spent a few years later, remains oddly heartwarming however often it’s told, involving as it does chance discovery, the early evangelicism of Jim O’Rourke and especially Jeff Tweedy, and a flurry of reissues that eventually sparked a new phase of creativity for Fay at the age of 69.
Due to the nature of archaeological practice, it’s usually the case that the makers of “forgotten” recordings are no longer around to enjoy the acclaim that greets their rediscovery. Folk-pop artist Bill Fay, however, very much was. The story of the revival of his career, originally launched (by Deram) in 1967 and spent a few years later, remains oddly heartwarming however often it’s told, involving as it does chance discovery, the early evangelicism of Jim O’Rourke and especially Jeff Tweedy, and a flurry of reissues that eventually sparked a new phase of creativity for Fay at the age of 69.
Originally released in 2004 by Wooden Hill on CD only, From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock played a significant role in Fay’s resurgence with its airing of 24 demos and outtakes recorded between 1966-1970, plus one track laid down in 2000. Ruminating on the preceding years Fay told Spin in 2012, “As far as I was concerned, I was gone, deleted. No-one was listening.” Clearly they were, and with this first reissue – digital now, and vinyl scheduled for early 2026 – comes the likelihood of further generational spread.
What’s most striking about the tracks on From The Bottom… is how clearly they underline the pace at which Fay’s style was evolving, as well as his darkening mindset as the promise of the ’60s became dust with the decade’s turning. His self-titled debut of 1970 was a set of lush, orchestral folk-pop songs of a gently forlorn bent, while just one year later Fay delivered Time Of The Last Persecution, an album of “serious music” (his words) informed by acid rock, Dylan and his own humanitarianism-cum-Christian faith.
Most of From The Bottom…, however, shows Fay as firmly of the ’60s, a peer of Dylan, McCartney and Ray Davies, with a direct, highly personal writing style unvarnished by poeticism and all the more affecting for it. The songs from this era are uniformly tender and thoughtful, with a light humour that guards against sentimentality, while several display a socio-political edge that would later be sharpened. Many recordings see Fay accompanying himself on piano but on some he’s backed by Honeybus, the band of “I Can’t Let Maggie Go” fame, whose Pete Dello also worked on arrangements and scores.
As expected of demos and outtakes, the tracks sometimes end abruptly and are often very short, though the closer, “Jack Laughter & Mademoiselle Sigh”, written in the mid-’60s but not recorded until 2000, clocks in at over six minutes. Its bookend is “Warwick Town” from 1966: featuring Honeybus, it’s an Anglo-folk pop number with brass and strings detail and a faint whiff of America’s West Coast. “Maxine’s Parlour” follows, a meatier number with obvious commercial viability whose electric guitar motif is a startling reminder of Teenage Fanclub’s “Everything Flows”. Both it and “Warwick Town” were briefly mooted as Honeybus’s follow-up to “I Can’t Let Maggie Go” but that wasn’t to be.
After the Moody Blues-toned “Doris Comes Today” sit the irresistible, McCartney-ish “Maudy La Lune”, where the narrator is “so in love it’s making me ill”, “Garden Song”, which shifts between Dylan and Gilbert O’Sullian, “Strangers In The Fields” (McCartney again, in the briefest of sketches) and the vaguely Floyd-ian “Brighton Beach”, where phased psych guitar disguises the tragedy at the song’s core. There’s a similarly bleak, though lyrically more explicit focus in “Camille”: “Someone came and took Camille away today,” sings Fay, then later, “She was everybody’s private property/You could read their minds – ‘she belongs to me’”.
Very different and dating from 1970 is “Backwoods Maze”, which features a satisfyingly dirty, Neil Young-ish guitar workout, and, from the same year, “Parasite Child”. Here, Fay is again in compassionate mode and seems to give a lyrical hat-tip to McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed”, while biting a little of Lennon’s solo style. The album’s last quarter lines up “Gentle Willie”, “Sing Us One Of Your Songs, May” and “Lily Brown”. The first is a poignant, anti-war lament cast along Gilbert O’Sullivan lines, the second another tale of war’s devastating claim on young lives (“You know he’s gone to heaven, May/Though he was only 23”) and “Lily Brown”, a Love/Scott Walker hybrid written and recorded in 1966 by John Fay, Bill’s older brother, with the younger Fay on backing vocals. The album bows out with the aforementioned “Jack Laughter & Mademoiselle Sigh”, a kind of relationship parable in which the characters switch behavioural roles at the end.
There’s been no shortage of Fay material available since his “rediscovery” – a term he rejected on the entirely reasonable grounds that he’d never gone anywhere. It includes not only two compilations and the reissue of his first two albums, but also three albums of new songs, with Countless Branches released as recently as 2020. It was his last – Fay died in February 2025, aged 81. Despite its title, From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock is nothing like a dusty collection of irrelevant oddments. It’s an intimate testament to Fay’s singular artistry – and a reminder of the mysterious workings of fate.
