Given that it was a mere two days before we left, I decided to wait till we returned before conducting further archaeological research in the musty back corners of Hughesy’s memory but, as things turned out I came back with a copy of Halcyon Days as well.
So to the music.
As you’d expect, an album that starts with a track named Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal, with the opening lines:
Friends greet you on the way
Say “There you go.”
There you go
You may wonder where you’re supposed to be going
has a little more than its fair share of lyrical whimsy, and fits nicely into the same folk-psych vibe as the incredible String Band without exotic instrumentation and vocal eccentricities.
With an instrumental line-up of acoustic guitars, fiddle, mandolin, penny-whistle and harmonium it sounds very much like what you'd expect from a group of Dublin hippies getting together in their commune. From the start, the lyrical content name-checked various of the band's friends and acquaintances, and incorporated various stray musical and lyrical influences.
The spoken word introduction to the second track Dr Dim and Dr Strange, for example, comes straight from the pages of Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Historically, Opened and Cut up, published in 1621.