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All Our Days

[Sandy Denny]

All Our Days is unique in Sandy’s repertoire; she sings for over eight minutes poetic lyrics against an orchestral background—like a mini-opera. As well as the officially released version on her 1977 album Rendezvous and on the 2 CD anthology released in 2000, released in 2000, No More Sad Refrains, there exist two different versions on the 1988 cassette The Attic Tracks Vol. 1. On one, Sandy and Trevor sing in a 30-piece choir a “High Church” arrangement of the song. This was intended to be a final track reprise on Rendezvous, but Island rejected this version. The other version is a fully orchestrated version arranged and conducted by Harry Robertson, but without vocals. It stands up as a piece of music in its own right, and shows some of Sandy’s classical influences as the music was written to reflect the four seasons of like in All Our Days.

Sandy recorded a demo of this song at home in Byfield between 1974 and 1976; she accompanied herself on piano. This track was included in 2004 on the bonus CD of Fledg’ling’s Sandy Denny anthology A Boxful of Treasures.

Áine Furey sang Sandy Denny’s songs All Our Days and Winter Winds on her 1999 album Sweetest Summer Rain.

This video shows Jenn Butterworth singing All Our Days at a home concert for ReJigged Festival in October 2020:

Lyrics

Sandy Denny sings All Our Days

We search for everything
Keeping what we would win
Orchids or tiny flowers
Wooden huts or ivory towers
Centuries or hours

Dark are the winter days
Holy in many ways
Vaults of time unshaken
Whilst as through them we are taken
Sleeping forests wake
Ice melts on the lake
Birds begin in making their way back home

The frost and the fire goes
East winds and winter snows
Sun upon the daffodils
Dancing on the verdant hills
Lambs in the fields

Warmer grows the morning sun
Days of youthfulness and fun
The prime of the year begun
The song of summer to be sung
Everything is one
Working day is done
Watch the river running through our lives

How slowly the colours change
We feel the drops of rain
Mists of evening rise again
We rarely stroll the shadowed lanes
As autumn night draws in

We sit upon the sand
Warmth draining from the land
Watching the ruby sun
Setting on the ocean
The echoes in the caves
The flame upon the waves
Memories for saving all our days