Vashti Bunyan -

Vashti Bunyan is an English singer–songwriter who released two mid-’60s singles and the 1970 Philips album Just Another Diamond Day. After its 2000 reissue and reappraisal, she reemerged with the 2005 disc Lookaftering. Meanwhile, vaulted early recordings surfaced on the archival double-disc Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind. Her third album, Heartleap, followed in 2014.

Early Life, Singles

She was born Jennifer Vashti Bunyan on March 2, 1945, in Newcastle upon Tyne; the youngest of three children borne to to John Bunyan and Helen (née Webber). They middle-named her Vashti after John’s boat and Helen’s nickname; taken from the Persian queen Vashti, the first wife of King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther.

Jennifer studied at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and traveled at eighteen to New York, where the city’s folk scene inspired her musical path. In London, she met Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who produced her May 1965 Decca single “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind” (b/w “I Want to Be Alone”), released under the mononym Vashti.

A. “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind” (2:18) is a Jagger–Richards song first recorded as a February 1965 b-side by the American duo Dick & Dee Dee, an opening act on the Stones’ 1964 Californian tour.
B. “I Want to Be Alone” (2:51)

Vashti teamed with producer Peter Snell for her May 1966 second single “Train Song” (b/w “Love Song”) released on Columbia.

A. “Train Song” (2:15) is a Vashti co-write with British author Alasdair Clayre, whose translation of Jacques Brel’s (“The Dove”) inspired covers by Judy Collins and Joan Baez.
B .”Love Song” (1:59)

Also in 1966, Vashti cut an acetate of the original “Winter Is Blue,” which she later recut for the 1967 docu-film Tonite Lets All Make Love in London, a chronicle of ‘swinging London’ with a corresponding soundtrack that also features songs by Chris Farlowe, Pink Floyd, and Loog Oldham’s latest client Twice as Much, a folk-pop harmony duo signed to the manager’s new label Immediate Records. Vashti sings on the duo’s 1968 song “The Coldest Night of the Year” from their second album That’s All.

“Winter Is Blue” (2:55)

Just Another Diamond Day

Vashti Bunyan released Just Another Diamond Day on December 20, 1970, on Philips.

It contains fourteen originals written during her 1968–69 horse-drawn journey across Scotland with then-boyfriend Robert Lewis, who co-wrote “Window Over the Bay,” “Hebridean Sun,” and “Trawlerman’s Song.” Bunyan performs in solo acoustic and small-ensemble settings with select contributions from Incredible String Band fiddler Robin Williamson, Transatlantic solo artist John James, and Fairport Convention members Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol.

She began the journey after hearing of Donovan’s plan to establish a remote musical commune on the Isle of Skye. Though the commune never materialized, the experience shaped the album’s vision of pastoral withdrawal and domestic solitude. Many of the songs were written en route and reflect specific landscapes and seasonal transitions observed along the way.

Just Another Diamond Day unfolds at unhurried tempos and low dynamic thresholds, shaped by short song forms and a close-miked acoustic blend. Bunyan’s voice and fingerpicked guitar remain central throughout, joined selectively by dulcitone and organ from John James, piano by Christopher Sykes, and chamber voicings arranged by Robert Kirby on “Diamond Day,” “Swallow Song,” and “Rainbow River.” Instrumental color enters in brief, overlapping phrases: Robin Williamson weaves fiddle, Irish harp, and whistle across three tracks, while Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol pair mandolin and banjo on two others.

“Glow Worms” and “Lily Pond” move in near-stationary pacing with minimal accompaniment; “Where I Like to Stand” begins in open vocal space before organ and strings settle into slow harmonic blocks. “Rose Hip November” and “Rainbow River” expand through layered entries rather than tempo or harmonic shifts, building texture in place of motion. The final track, “Iris’s Song for Us,” reduces the setting to voice and bowed fiddle, closing the record in suspended stillness.

A1. “Diamond Day” (1:47) – with Kirby (strings, recorder). Vashti evokes rural labor as routine grace, closing with the line “just another love to give / and a diamond day.”
A2. “Glow Worms” (2:16) – Vashti describes a slow passage through springtime dusk, whispering “holding moments in the depth of care.”
A3. “Lily Pond” (1:24) – with James (dulcitone) and Williamson (fiddle, whistle, harp). She recalls drifting through summer light and cosmic wonder, “falling with a thousand stars / down the Milky Way to Mars.”
A4. “Timothy Grub” (3:15) – with Sykes (piano) and Bunyan herself on recorder. Vashti narrates a caravan fable of talking animals, tin sheds, and dreaming children “with the dogs eating buttercups on the wayside.”
A5. “Where I Like to Stand” (2:21) – Bunyan, James; with James (organ), Swarbrick (mandolin), and Nicol (banjo). She counts boats, gulls, and waves before grounding the scene in “the pebbles and into sand / which is where I like to stand.”
A6. “Swallow Song” (2:16) – with Kirby (strings, recorder). Vashti observes seasonal passage through birds and leaves, “see how fast the winter comes around.”
A7. “Window Over the Bay” (1:47) – Bunyan, Lewis; with Kirby (trumpet). She lists pastoral wishes—sheep, boats, and a milking pail—“and a big wooden table all laid out for tea.”

B1. “Rose Hip November” (2:27) – with Sykes (organ). Vashti recalls still mist and falling leaves, “caught by dawn in castle moats around the sleeping hill.”
B2. “Come Wind Come Rain” (2:07) – with Swarbrick (mandolin) and Nicol (banjo). She portrays the road ahead in rhythmic cadence: “every day is another ten miles and an armful of hay.”
B3. “Hebridean Sun” (1:13) – Bunyan, Lewis. Spring arrives as “the good fountain flows” across peat, seabirds, and silver sand.
B4. “Rainbow River” (3:22) – with Kirby (strings, recorder). She weaves three pastoral vignettes—boy, farmer, meadow—framed by the refrain “the rainbow river is a laughing stream.”
B5. “Trawlerman’s Song” (1:56) – Vashti adopts the voice of a returning sailor who gifts a carved boat and says, “I’ve thought of you every day.”
B6. “Jog Along Bess” (3:36) – with Sykes (piano) and Williamson (fiddle). She tells of rescued animals and a wagon transformed, ending with “we wished very hard and you gave us a house.”
B7. “Iris’s Song for Us” (1:33) – Bunyan, Dix, Macfarlane; with fiddle by Swarbrick. Vashti traces a journey through love and sleep: “now my love please let me cross / brown boundaries of sleep with you.”

Bunyan recorded the album over three days in December 1969 at Sound Techniques, London, with engineer Jerry Boys and American producer Joe Boyd, who worked in succession on titles by Fotheringay and Dr. Strangely Strange. Kirby appeared between work on the first two Nick Drake albums and 1971 titles by Audience, Cochise, Gillian McPherson, and Shelagh McDonald.

Just Another Diamond Day appeared in a gatefold with a photo of Vashti surrounded by animal illustration by organist John James. In his line notes, Boyd recalls that he “heard her before three years ago at a poetry reading, singing songs of delicate beauty that melted me on the spot.” He reckons that her songs “may seem unreal to urbanized listeners” but advises buyers to “listen with open hearts and minds,” adding that he’s “never known anyone whose music is so completely a reflection of their life and spirit.”

Philips released the album in the UK in limited quantity with minimal promotion. Bunyan, then focused on raising her newborn child, withdrew from music shortly afterward.

Later Activity

Bunyan left the music industry in 1971 and settled with Robert Lewis at the Incredible String Band’s Glen Row cottages before continuing on foot to the west coast of Ireland. She returned to Scotland and spent the next three decades raising three children in relative obscurity. During this time, Just Another Diamond Day gained a following among record collectors and was reappraised as a lost classic. Unaware of its resurgence, Bunyan remained outside the music world as original pressings of the album circulated for thousands of pounds.

In 2000, Just Another Diamond Day appeared on CD with four bonus tracks, introducing Bunyan’s music to a younger generation of artists. In 2002, she returned to recording with a guest vocal on Piano Magic’s “Crown of the Lost,” followed by collaborations with Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective. In 2005, Bunyan released her long-delayed second album Lookaftering on FatCat Records. Produced by Max Richter, it featured contributions from Joanna Newsom, Kevin Barker, Adem Ilhan, Otto Hauser, and Adam Pierce.

Bunyan toured North America in 2006 and appeared at London’s Meltdown Festival in 2008. She recorded new material for the Scottish literature–music project Ballads of the Book and sang on Anthony Reynolds’ British Ballads. That same year, DiChristina released Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind, a two-disc retrospective of her mid-1960s singles and demos. Kieran Evans’ documentary Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before premiered at the 2008 BFI London Film Festival, retracing her 1968 journey in tandem with her first major London concert.

In 2014, Bunyan issued Heartleap, her third and final album, built from self-recorded parts written and arranged independently over several years. Her daughter Whyn Lewis designed the cover, as she had for Lookaftering. Bunyan later published her memoir Wayward: Just Another Life to Live in 2022, and in 2024, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland awarded her an honorary doctorate. FatCat reissued Lookaftering in 2025 with nine previously unreleased demos and a 2006 live track from Los Angeles.

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