May You Never

Martyn wrote it alone. It first appeared as a single in November 1971, backed with Just Now: a band version cut at Basing Street with Paul Kossoff of Free on guitar, in the same sessions that produced Kossoff's Time Away. Mojo says the single flopped. That version is now a bonus track on the 2005 reissue of Bless the Weather.

He recorded it again for Solid Air. In Mojo's telling, John Wood had him go back in near midnight, just before the tapes left for mastering in New York, and that take became the album version. BBC Radio 4's Soul Music says it was done in a single take in the early hours. Uncut called it his sweetest pop song, a lullaby in which optimism wins out over the blues, and Richard Thompson said it was simple and strong enough to go in a hymn book.

Live

It became a signature song and a fixture of his shows. He played it on The Old Grey Whistle Test in March 1973, and sang it with Kathy Mattea on the first series of Transatlantic Sessions in 1995. Ralph McTell recorded it in 1976, Eric Clapton put it on Slowhand in 1977, and Snow Patrol sang it on the 2011 tribute album. In 2025 Soul Music gave it a whole episode. The upload in the hypersongs web is the Solid Air album version, from the 2000 remaster.