John Cale (with Adam Miller)

The Soul of Patrick Lee (1971)

This is a song that stands out like a sore thumb in the midst of Cale's minimalist collaboration with Terry Riley, Church of Anthrax (1971). It's a bit like it's there to provide some light relief from the challenging material that surrounds it. I don't know who Patrick Lee is or was but I can say that the vocal is by someone called Adam Miller, though of him I know nothing more. Lyrically, the song comes across like the sort of thing Dylan Thomas may have written if he'd been in an acid-folk group, with highly charged symbolic language that tells of a woman and her eagles coming down from the mountains of North Wales (cool name check for Bangor) with a song to sing and, perhaps, some battles to be fought all the way to Swansea Bay. I'm sure Cale knew what it was ultimately about but where Patrick Lee fits in I just don't know (answers on a post card, please). It's a tune I like a lot, though.