Wild Horses – Gram Parsons & The Flying Burrito Brothers

Five years ago this week I was working at a London design agency, I'd been there fourteen years, then suddenly I was told it was going into liquidation. Never went back to even clear my desk, very abrupt end, I look back now and think of all the things I gained from the experience. The biggest of which was I met some brilliant friends, and many of them helped me expand to my musical tastes.

One of these came from Anna, she added another step in my musical journey. I was a big fan of bands like The Byrds and The Eagles, all that Southern Rock era, but I was also a huge Rolling Stones fan, seen as Rock gods. But at that point I couldn't draw a link between them, Anna asked do you like 'Gram Parsons', never heard of him I said. She told me about this guy who was basically seen as a Country music ghost, another one of those artists that only musical historians have heard of, but he joined the dots between some of the more famous artists. He influenced many of his peers and certain key artists, he was a great mate of Keith Richards and one of his main partners was Emmylou Harris. Great company, he was a real character, as wild as Keith and they got into lots of trouble. He sadly died in one of those Rock n Roll drugs overdoses, but even that wasn't the end of his strange story. Weirdly one of his mates nicked his body after his death and took it out into the dessert to cremate it in a supposed pact they had made years earlier. There's loads of myths about the guy but for all that his music was inspirational and right in my lane. His main band was called The Flying Burrito Brothers, he had worked his way through other bands, even The Byrds for a short period. But sadly he never got the recognition or credit he thought he deserved and it ate away at him.

After befriending Keith Richards they helped each other create this great song, Gram released it first, then it was a bigger hit for The Stones themselves. It's an amazing song, great imagery, easy to get the metaphor of the wild horses pulling you apart. The words are all so meaningful, you can hear the torment in the singers voice and the setting of the song. I'm guessing this one meant something to them both. There's really nothing fluffy about the beat, the messaging or tone of it all, it just sounds like the truth.

There is a video on YouTube of Gram and Keith playing about coming up with the melody for this.

Thanks Anna for the tip.

Favourite lyric : Graceless lady you know who I am  / You know I can't let you slide through my hands