Ir is hard to say the too soon gone Sandy Denny fell into her epitaph with “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”., she first recorded it privately in 1967 and again with the Strawbs beffore the Fairport Convention version on Unhalfbricking.
And yet it is hard not to say it: it is an aching paean to loss and impernance -another that’s contradictory yet there is something triumphant in the blankness. Call it existentialism or something.
I have three copies. The Fairport one so movingly performed, a copy by Cat Power reworked entirely for piano and very very impressive. And my fave, Sandy’s live version from 1978, though played with a full band it seems cleaner and though her vocals aren’t quite as good they are realer and more lived in.
Yes, folks, it’s gonna be one of those years…