Solid Air

Martyn wrote it in summer 1972 for Nick Drake, his friend and Island labelmate, who had babysat for the Martyns in Hampstead and visited them in Hastings. American Songwriter heard it as a warning to Drake. Martyn said only that it was made for a friend, and made right, with very clear motives. Asked what the title meant, he said it was obvious. Beverley Martyn remembered asking him why he kept bringing home people who were going to die. Drake died of an antidepressant overdose in November 1974, and Uncut wrote that the song became a kind of requiem.

The band cut it live at Basing Street, with overdubs at Sound Techniques: Danny Thompson on double bass, Rabbit Bundrick on keyboards, Dave Mattacks on drums, Tony Coe on saxophone and Tristan Fry on vibraphone, which he damped with his fingers because its pedal was broken. The vocals took two difficult evenings. Thompson said the song gave him great freedom and that they always loved playing it live.

Live

Tristan Fry remembered Martyn playing it at Glastonbury in 1979, and it was part of the full Solid Air set at the Barbican in 2006. Skye Edwards covered it on Johnny Boy Would Love This in 2011. The upload in the hypersongs web is not the album version: it is a duo performance by Martyn and Danny Thompson, filmed in 1998 at Raemoir House Hotel in Banchory for the second series of BBC Scotland's Transatlantic Sessions.