| The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter | ||||
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| Studio album by The Incredible String Band | ||||
| Released | March 1968 | |||
| Recorded | December 1967 at Sound Techniques, London | |||
| Genre | Psychedelic folk | |||
| Length | 49:51 | |||
| Label | Elektra / WEA | |||
| Producer | Joe Boyd | |||
| Professional reviews | ||||
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| The Incredible String Band chronology | ||||
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The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter was the third album by The Incredible String Band, released in March 1968. It is regarded by many critics as a quintessential example of hippie culture, with its promotion of ideas such as communal living, eastern mysticism and rationalistic pantheism.
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The album was a major commercial success in the UK, staying in the charts for 27 weeks with a peak of #5. It has sold 800,000 copies in the UK to date. In the U.S., the ISB always remained underground and the album struggled to #161 on the Billboard 200. However, it was nominated for a Grammy in the folk music category.
The album features a series of vividly dreamlike Robin Williamson songs, such as "The Minotaur's Song", a surreal music-hall parody sung from the point of view of the mythical beast. Its centrepiece is Mike Heron's "A Very Cellular Song", a 13-minute reflection on life, love, and amoebas, whose complex structure incorporates a Bahamian spiritual ("I Bid You Goodnight", originally recorded by the Pinder Family [1][2]) and an adaptation of a Sikh hymn ("May the pure light within you"). The album's layered production style employs multitrack recording techniques[3] and a very wide array of instruments from all corners of the world, including sitar, gimbri, shenai, oud, harpsichord, panpipes, and kazoo.
The album's cover art - which on original LP issues was the back cover, as the front showed just Williamson and Heron - consists of a photograph taken on Christmas Day 1967. It shows both musicians, their girlfriends Licorice McKechnie and Rose Simpson, friends Roger Marshall and Nicky Walton, several children of their friend Mary Stewart, and Robin's dog Leaf.[4]
Regarding the title, Mike Heron said at the time:- "The hangman is death and the beautiful daughter is what comes after. Or you might say that the hangman is the past twenty years of our life and the beautiful daughter is now, what we are able to do after all these years. Or you can make up your own meaning - your interpretation is probably just as good as ours." [4]
All songs written and composed by Robin Williamson, except tracks 4, 5, & 9 by Mike Heron.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Koeeoaddi There" | 4:49 |
| 2. | "The Minotaur's Song" | 3:22 |
| 3. | "Witches Hat" | 2:33 |
| 4. | "A Very Cellular Song" | 13:09 |
| 5. | "Mercy I Cry City" | 2:46 |
| 6. | "Waltz of the New Moon" | 5:10 |
| 7. | "The Water Song" | 2:50 |
| 8. | "Three Is a Green Crown" | 7:46 |
| 9. | "Swift as the Wind" | 4:53 |
| 10. | "Nightfall" | 2:33 |
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter has been widely acclaimed by many critics. For instance, it was #88 in Joe S. Harrington's Top 100 Albums[7] and was listed by Keenan in The Best Albums Ever...Honest.[8]
The artwork has been referenced on the cover to David Keenan's book England's Hidden Reverse, Current 93's album cover to their LP Earth Covers Earth, Devendra Banhart's Cripple Crow LP, and Feathers' eponymous debut.
The amoeba section of "A Very Cellular Song" was covered by actor Nigel Planer, in character as 'Neil the Hippy' from Television show The Young Ones on the LP Neil's Heavy Concept Album, released in 1984.[9]
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