A song by Lal Waterson and Chris Collins from Bright Phoebus, Lal and Mike Waterson’s criminally under-appreciated album of self-composed songs.
There aren’t many contemporary songs which inspire the same kind of awe in me as “Lemany”, but this is one of them. There’s a more direct connection, too. One of the strange, incantatory lines in the first half of “Lemany” goes like this:
The sun is just a-glimmering:
Arise, my dear
And here’s a line from the middle section of this song, sung on the record by Bob Davenport (the main verses are sung by Lal):
The day has only just begun,
The silver sun is shining.
Wake up, wake up everyone!
The day is only dazzling!
The line from “Lemany” is clearly there in the background; I think Lal’s line actually betters it.
I was wary of doing this song – there are some extraordinarily powerful lines; there’s one in particular which tends to make me cry when I hear it or see it written down, so actually singing it was quite a challenge. I got through it, though. There isn’t as big a contrast between the verses and the middle section as there is on the record, for obvious reasons; what I did do was put together two different recordings, self-as-Lal and self-as-Bob. Wonders of technology eh?
Fifty-Two Folk Songs 
brilliant , loved it , im trying to learn this song at the moment.