I’m a huge Al Stewart fan. His 1976 album Year of the Cat is in my personal top five favorite albums of all time and the title song from that album is simply one of the best-written and best-produced tracks of the modern era. No surprise then, that today’s classic song of the day is another one from that album, “On the Border.” Released as a single in April of 1977, it peaked just outside the top forty, hitting #42 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“On the Border” was a standout on the Year of the Cat album and has had real lasting power. Mr. Stewart had this to say about the song:
“If anything, ‘On The Border’ goes down better than ‘Year of the Cat’. It wasn’t a big hit but has lasted very well. People have stuck with it. It still gets played a lot over here. It was from whatever was going on at the time. It came from a quote by Edward Heath the British Prime Minister. He said ‘In the future the civilian population will be on the frontline of battle.’ Actually it was the most prescient thing he ever said in his entire political career because it has turned out to be exactly right; after the Paris attacks and all the rest of it. The civilian population is on the frontline of battle. ‘On The Border’ is reflecting that particular philosophy.”
Like many of Mr. Stewart’s songs then and since, “On the Border” is about a bit of history, in this case the dying days of colonialism and the uprising of the oppressed populace. In Al’s own words:
“The first verse is about the Basque Separatist movement and then the second verse is about what was then the Rhodesian crisis. Mugabe: ‘The hand that sets the farms alight has spread the word to those who’re waiting on the border.’ Thirty years after I wrote the song, Mugabe was actually setting fire to all the white farms.”
And here are those two verses:
The fishing boats go out across the evening water
Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border
The wind whips up the waves so loud
The ghost moon sails among the clouds
Turns the rifles into silver on the border
On my wall the colours of the maps are running
From Africa the winds they talk of changes coming
The torches flare up in the night
The hand that sets the farms alight
Has spread the word to those who’re waiting on the border
Typically literate and historically interesting lyrics by Mr. Stewart.
The Spanish guitar on “On the Border” was supplied by the multi-talented Peter White, who played acoustic on all of Al’s albums of that era. Other musicians on the track included Tim Renwick on electric guitar, Peter Wood on keyboards, George Ford on bass, and Stuart Elliott on drums. Alan Parsons produced the track.
For your daily bonus video of the day, here’s an older and presumably even wiser Al Stewart and his old pal Peter White performing an acoustic version of “On the Border” in 2011. Great guitar work by Mr. White; this one’s a real treat.
