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Katherine Lubar: “Prison Hallway” (acrylic on panel, 1999) (source: http://www.katlubar.com)

I walked down the hallway
And I heard his door slam
Turn, turn, turn again
I walked down the courthouse stairs
And did not understand
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind

And I played my guitar
Through the night to the day
Turn, turn, turn again
And the only tune
My guitar could play
Was the old, cruel rain
And the wind

Maybe it takes a bunch of “kids” to make this signify: when they recorded “Percy,” Fairport’s relative youth (bassist Ashley Hutchings was oldest at 24, drummer Lamble youngest at 19) may have been vital to their heartfelt interpretation. Regardless, the song proved tragically prescient, a potent symbol of an imminent grief-storm. 1969 was a pivotal year for Fairport – they garnered critical raves and expanded an already burgeoning fan-base through live performance and an excellent sophomore LP, What We Did on Our Holidays. The band seemed poised for a major break-through. But less than a month after the sessions for Unhalfbricking ended, the band’s tour van, returning from a gig in the predawn hours, struck a barrier on the M1 motorway and careened off the road, somersaulting down a hill into an adjacent field. Injuries ranged from superficial to serious, but both Lamble and Thompson’s girlfriend, Jeannie Franklyn, were killed. The van’s driver – Fairport’s road manager – had fallen asleep at the wheel. Charged with vehicular manslaughter, he served six months in prison.

It was devastating for me. I felt in a state of shock for a couple of years. It broke my perspective for a while – I couldn’t get an overall picture of something. It was like seeing the world piecemeal instead of as a whole thing.
— Richard Thompson

Fairport eventually recovered and reformed. But the momentum they had achieved was lost, and they never became a major band. Worse, tragedies and reversals of fortune dogged them. Sandy Denny left for a solo career and Thompson eventually followed. In 1971, a truck ran off the road, knocking in a wall of their “Big Pink”-style communal home and rehearsal space. The band was unharmed but the driver was killed. In 1978, Denny, a boisterous personality with a taste for alcohol that expanded to drugs, fell down a flight of stairs and died.

Coda

A crash on the highway
Flew the car to a field
Turn, turn, turn again

Robert Frank: “Crosses on Scene of Highway Accident” (photograph, 1955) (Art Institute of Chicago)

Six years after the crash that took Lamble and Franklyn, Thompson released an elliptical song inspired by the tragedy. Almost hidden in the middle of the uncharacteristically sunny Hokey Pokey album – the second of six he recorded with his first wife, Linda (nee Peters) – “Never Again” was written shortly after the accident and is one of three known Thompson compositions that obliquely address it (the others are “Crazy Man Michael,” recorded with Fairport in 1970, and the unreleased “Bad News Is All the Wind Can Carry”). “It’s strange,” Thompson said of the song, “I don’t really think I wrote it. It just came from somewhere.”

Richard & Linda Thompson: Never Again (1974)

Mystery pervades its lyrics as well. Sung by Linda in a voice that’s equal parts dignity and pain, “Never Again” is cryptic yet clear, a requiem for a fallen friend or lost lover and nothing of the sort. Like so much great music, ultimately it defies analysis – like a forlorn prayer to a God who may or not be there, it just has to be heard.

The time for dividing and no one will speak
Of the sadness of hiding, and the softness of sleep
O will there be nothing of peace till the end
Or never, O never, O never again?

Richard and Linda Thompson (1982) (source: Paul L. Kovit / Hannibal Records)