Which is THE Strawbs Epic? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Ghosts by far! The other selections don't stand a ghost of a chance. Smile

The Vision Of The Lady Of The Lake (on dragonfly)

and the "most epic" would be Hangman & Papist.

let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword

"Ghosts" to me.

SteveG wrote:

kenethlevine wrote:

The latest album has at least 3 songs that easily qualify as "epic" - "The Nails from the Hands of Christ", "When the Spirit Moves", and "The Ferryman's curse"

I would go with "The Ferryman's Curse". If we put all of The Strawbs' near epics on the list the count would be up to about 30 or 40 songs!

right, Strawbs tended to the epic side of things during what is generally regarded as their peak period, but even the backsliding years had epics like "Beside the Rio Grande", "Burning for me" or "Words of Wisdom". Beginning with "The Broken Hearted Bride" in 2008, they returned to the epic ideal with force. BHB had 2 distinct epics ("A Call to Action" and "Through Aphrodite's Eyes"), "Dancing to the Devil's Beat" had one major one ("pro Patria Suite") and a smaller one ("When Silent Shadows Fall"), and the latest has 1-3 as we discussed.

TBH (and I think you agree Steve), the title cut to "Ferryman's Curse" doesn't quite do it for me. Lyrically yes, and at times musically as well, but the meter and melody are just meh for me,. especially when compared to its prequel "The Vision of the Lady of the Lake". If that track could have lived up to its billing, it would be a 5 star album, but it costs the album a star and a bit for me unfortunately

Edited by kenethlevine - July 21 2020 at 09:55

The latest album has at least 3 songs that easily qualify as "epic" - "The Nails from the Hands of Christ", "When the Spirit Moves", and "The Ferryman's curse"

Sean Trane wrote:

M27Barney wrote:

^ A few nice licks by R.C.Wakeman do not an epic make! Extend the hammond organ intro out by 10 mins and add mellotron and moog plus a five minute guitar solo and you may have your epic....otherwise MEH...

And cockney rebel's proper epic (live version) blows all these tracks out of the water...

You refuse (on purpose, I suppose) to see that "epic" means more "heroic" than "lengthy"

And the grandeur/poetry (that is implied in an "epic") is really present in the poignant text (the Orangists hanging the catholics on NI, while claiming they're "loyal")

An epic sends shiver down the spine, and never has Dave Cousins' voice and words been more poignant than on that track.

Every one of these songs has an epic feel to me. This is a particularly epic story, so well sung.

"Into every rain, a little life must fall." ~Tom Rapp

SteveG wrote:

I don't claim to know anything of DC's radio adventures except that I do know he was relieved to leave the Strawbs for it 1978 and was successful at whatever his function was. I do know that the Strawbs were resurrected in the 80s to keep his friends like Brian Willoughby, Tony Hooper and Richard Hudson employed, so the band never had DC's undivided attention and it shows in the few albums that version of the group made.

Hi,

His book is not clear in a lot of things ... the ending of the band in 1978, seems to coincide with the chance to make some money back at where he came from in radio which he had been involved with even in the earlier days with STRAWBS, and he might have stopped because STRAWBS was not bringing in enough money ... and I think his bills were mounting for house, child, etc ...

His book is a bit strange for me, because his divided attentions, seems to make a case that the band just did not cut it to make things easier for him, even if/when the music was excellent all around, which at least in Santa Barbara, all the albums from 1974 to when I left in 1982 ... were all played senseless by Guy Guden on his shows regularly ... but I have a feeling that the American sales is what hurt the most ... they probably did not generate numbers that helped, and were too close to breaking even or losing some money.

I can't even decide how to do a review of the book, and I have read it twice.

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

M27Barney wrote:

Ok. I've done farts longer than all those tracks...epics? Suppose to the popsters everything over three minutes is an epic boring prog dinosaur noodle fest....😎

Barney,

Stop being a twit and a tw@t!! Stern Smile

does it get more epic than this?? Smile

Edited by Sean Trane - July 16 2020 at 16:52

SteveG wrote:

Not really, as your definition only applies to long poems.

Ok. Then change the topic title. As none of these are poems obviously. You may as well apply the word elephantine to this set of tracks...

SteveG wrote:

M27Barney wrote:

Ok. I've done farts longer than all those tracks...epics? Suppose to the popsters everything over three minutes is an epic boring prog dinosaur noodle fest....😎

Barney, some times you come up with some real winners of opinion. What makes a song an epic is it's sense of grandiosity and dare I say it, it's sense of pretention. But to satisfy your definition of an epic, the song running times are as follows, with only New World being close to your three minute pop formula: The Battle 6:28, The Antique Suite 12:13, Blue Angel 9:45, New World 4:08, The River/Down By The Sea 8:37, Autumn 8:26 and Ghosts 8:30.

Epic is used primarily to define the longer (chronologically defined) peices of music. I reckon the cutoff time for arbitrary purposes is 15+ minutes. Again, people could say, I think A is the best ergo A is EPIC....thus it just becomes another synonym for favorite....again every track a band does could be defined as EPIC....we have this argument ad nauseum....

Edited by M27Barney - July 16 2020 at 10:29

Poll Question: Which is THE Strawbs Epic?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
The Battle	2	[5.88%]
The Antique Suite	3	[8.82%]
Blue Angel	3	[8.82%]
New World	3	[8.82%]
The River/Down By The Sea	2	[5.88%]
Autumn	9	[26.47%]
Ghosts	12	[35.29%]
You can not vote in this poll

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