HERE COMES THE SONG

A song caught my ear on the car radio recently. The voice was familiar. The song floaty, ethereal. Barely two minutes long, Lord of the Reedy River was a balm on a day of constant cold rain and wind. It took me back to the late Sixties. The tranquil ballad was the first song on a long-forgotten album, Post Card by Mary Hopkin. The Welsh teenager was one of the first artists signed to the Beatles’ Apple label and Post Card was produced by Paul McCartney.

Although Lennon and Harrison contributed harmonies to McCartney’s lead vocal, no Beatle actually plays an instrument on the finished track but it is distinctive for an entirely different reason. Lennon and McCartney seldom disagreed over the authorship of a Beatles song. Eleanor Rigby is a rare example