In Praise of Learning

Credited to Henry Cow with Slapp Happy and recorded at The Manor in early 1975, with Simon Heyworth engineering. The title comes from Bertolt Brecht's poem, and the writers Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell read Beginning: The Long March and Morning Star as pointing to Mao's Long March and the Morning Star newspaper. Living in the Heart of the Beast began as an instrumental by Hodgkinson, who wrote its words himself after Blegvad struggled with them. The cover is Ray Smith's third paint sock; he went uncredited on the original LP and was named only on later CDs.

Steve Lake made it Melody Maker's album of the year, and Ian MacDonald in the NME found it at once the group's most extreme and most accessible record. It was remixed for vinyl in 1985, returned to its 1975 mix on a 2000 CD, and remastered by Bob Drake for the 2019 Redux box.