Gone to Earth (Barclay James Harvest album)


Gone to Earth is the eighth studio album by the English rock group Barclay James Harvest released in 1977. It reached #30 in the UK charts, but in Germany it peaked at #10 and stayed for 197 weeks in the German album charts. As of 2011 it is ranked #6 on the list of longest running albums in the German album charts. Only the My Fair Lady soundtrack and albums by Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Andrea Berg spent more weeks in the charts. It was the band's largest selling album, eventually selling more than a million copies worldwide.
Hymn was a successful turntable hit at German radio stations in the late 1970s.
"Poor Man's Moody Blues" was written after a journalist angered the band by referring to Barclay James Harvest as a "poor man's Moody Blues". In response, guitarist John Lees wrote a song which sounded like the Moody Blues song "Nights in White Satin", but in fact was cleverly not the same - the words would not fit. Justin Hayward was not pleased; meeting him years later, bassist Les Holroyd apologised for it.
Other songs on the album deal with subjects like ended relationships, alienation the exploitation of animals for their fur and the space race.
The original LP version of this album, designed by Maldwyn Tootill, featured die-cut outer cover and full-color inner album sleeve. On one side of the inner sleeve was an owl ; on the other side was a picture of a sunset. The inner sleeve could be reversed so that either side would be displayed through the die cut.
The album's title, Gone to Earth, refers to the fox hunter's cry used to indicate that the quarry has returned to its lair.

Track listing

Personnel