“October Song” (1966) – The Incredible String Band * Written by Robin Williamson * Produced by Joe Boyd * LP: The Incredible String Band * Label: Elektra
With “October Song,” the hymn-like second track on the Incredible String Band’s 1966 debut album, Scotsman Robin Williamson introduces himself to the world as a bard with the ability to mystify, educate, and delight all at once. “Sometimes I want to murder time,” the 23 year-old sings of that most vexing human construct, “but mostly I just stroll along the path that he is taking.” Although the Incredible String Band album attracted positive notice in the British press, the initial trio split up after its release, with Williamson pursuing some of the Eastern musical yearnings he’d been expressing in song. He wound up in Morocco, where he amassed instruments and ran out of money; by the following year he’d be back in a duo with Mike Heron—another inventive songwriter with his own knack for expressing complexity as childlike wonder—for a series of remarkable late sixties albums. Continuing to defy/succumb to the passage of time, Williamson remains musically active.