Silver Birch and Weeping Willow

Ralph McTell wrote "Silver Birch and Weeping Willow" and recorded it first, as the last track on side two of My Side of Your Window (Transatlantic, December 1969), produced by McTell and recorded in August 1969 at Regent Sound Studios on Tottenham Court Road, with Tom Allom engineering. Tony Visconti arranged the strings on that record, so he knew the song before he produced Hopkin. McTell's version runs 2:00, or 2:02 on the expanded edition.

Hopkin's version is track three, side one, of Earth Song/Ocean Song, 2:48, recorded at AIR Studios in May and June 1971. Which players are on this track is not documented; the album personnel, McTell on guitar, Danny Thompson on bass, Dave Cousins on guitar and banjo and the Pop Arts String Quartet, apply generally. It was not a single and did not chart. We found no statement on the lyric's subject from McTell or Hopkin, no video and no performance by Hopkin in setlist.fm; her Royal Festival Hall show on May 20, 1972 did not include it as far as we could see, though that setlist page is incomplete. We found no covers and could not tell whether our upload is the 1971 version.