Peter Hammill, lead singer with the English prog rock band Van der Graaf Generator wrote the song ‘Autumn’ for his 1977 solo album Over before he was thirty, but it is imbued with the wisdom and sadness of a much older man. Many of the tracks on Over mourn the loss of a long-term relationship, but this song describes a different kind of loss, much later in life. The protagonist and his wife have reached the autumn of their lives and their children have fled the nest. They have given their children everything they could but now receive little in return.
The song features only Hammill’s multi-tracked voice, piano and the violin of Graham Smith who was briefly a member of Van der Graaf and played on their 1977 album The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome. The simplicity of the production perfectly matches the painful, inward nature of the emotions expressed.
The vocals are raw, the voice cracking with emotion and bewilderment at the protagonist’s loss, low in the vocal range, sometimes half-spoken and intimate. At times the baritone voice is joined in a melancholy duet by a falsetto voice an octave above, perhaps the voice of his wife who shares his loss.
The piano part features a bleak, almost tuneless falling motif like the last leaf of autumn drifting confusedly from a tree. The violin is close-miked, naked and passionate, like the last raging against the dying of the light.
The song almost breaks down completely about 90 seconds in, but manages to rouse itself as the voice becomes almost incoherent with pain. At around 2.40 some sort of equilibrium is reached, but the voice cracks again as the protagonist laments his lost dreams.
The track ends with chillingly poignant lines which describe a similar sense of loss that future generations will suffer,
I wonder how long
It will be till this song
Is sung by our own sons and daughters?
A beautiful, achingly sombre conclusion to an immensely powerful song.
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