Adventures In A Yorkshire iPod

From the iPod on this morning's drive to work comes  Adventures In A Yorkshire Landscape by Be Bop Deluxe. This is from the Live! In the Air Age album and stretches the little throwaway song into a wonderful showcase for Bill Nelson's guitar.

The band were formed in Wakefield in 1972 and were commercially pretty  successful . The problem to me always seemed to be what did they want to be, Glam or Prog ?   As you can see above they certainly didnt dress Prog. Nelson himself never seemed sure and dissolved and reformed the band a couple of times as its style changed. By 1978 it was all over and Nelson had moved on to Red Noise and a host of less commercial solo projects.
 One thing for sure though, Bill Nelson was one of the finest English guitarists of his day as shown by this live track.

Sorry to say that theres no video for this one but its no matter. This version is so wonderful we can stand to sit and look at a blurry album cover shot featuring a still from  Lang's Metropolis now can't we?

Bridges and rivers and buildings pulled down
Time spent in places my footsteps had found
Mirrors in ballrooms lie smashed on the ground,
Walking with November mists

Pathways and windows and movies in May
Quiet old ladies who'll soon pass away
Paintings and songs that I'd done in a day
Going 'round in my head

Fires on spires and chimneys of black
Fields on horizons with pylons that crack
With singing sad wires for council house mystics
To apply their statistics
And read the tea leaves,
Time knows no limits for days such as these.