The Snow Goose

Ferguson proposed Gallico's story after the band decided to build a whole album on one. Latimer and Bardens wrote most of it in about two weeks in the summer of 1974, in a converted farm building near the River Camel, and fixed each character's musical identity before writing. Early sessions at Decca in West Hampstead taped Ward's drums down, and Latimer disliked the dead sound, so the band moved to Island Studios in Basing Street and returned to Decca for overdubs and mixing. The 16 pieces were played live as a band, with overdubs added afterwards. Latimer said they had never played the whole work through before recording it. David Bedford wrote the orchestral arrangements, and Ferguson is credited with a duffle coat, waved to imitate flapping wings on Epitaph.

Gallico objected to the project, so the title became Music Inspired by The Snow Goose and planned lyrics drawn from his text were dropped. The album reached 22 in Britain, with 13 weeks on the chart, and 162 in the United States, and was certified silver in the UK. On 17 October 1975 Camel played it with the London Symphony Orchestra under Bedford at the Royal Albert Hall, a performance released on A Live Record (1978). The band re-recorded it in 2013, and it was newly mixed by Stephen W. Tayler for the Air Born box in 2023.