2025 was the year the world lost Bill Fay, a songwriter of enormous influence and talent. Bill was a Dead Oceans artist from 2012 onwards, when we released Life Is People, his first official album in over 40 years. He is still vastly under-appreciated, but for those who have encountered his music, he leaves a mark – Morby sums it up best: ‘Bill Fay exists as a secret handshake amongst us musicians. Those of us familiar with his body of work are obsessed with it’. Now that the dust has somewhat settled since Bill’s passing, it felt right to close out the year with something to acknowledge the loss, while also highlighting his timeless songwriting with a compilation of songs that are among his best.
From the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock is a collection of demos and outtakes that Bill made while beginning to navigate the music business, writing and demoing endlessly to find what worked for him, and for Decca (where he’d signed to their Deram imprint), ahead of the release of his self-titled debut LP at the beginning of 1970. Songs such as ‘Maudy La Lune’ were never released in any official capacity – Bill was confusingly embarrassed by the lyrics, they weren’t “meaningful” enough – yet it’s exactly the kind of song that stops anyone in their tracks, sounding as though it might be a long lost McCartney number. Across the 25 tracks is a snapshot of Bill as the promising songwriter, raw and explorative, bursting with the promise of something special.
The compilation was originally released in 2004 by Wooden Hill, a small British label, who like many who’d discovered Bill, were desperate to unearth more recordings and help find a larger audience. It was only released on CD, so our digital release marks the first time it’s been available on DSPs. The original artwork is a heartfelt photo of Bill standing proudly with his Dad, circa 1966/67; Miles has taken this image and repurposed it within an aesthetic we’ve been creating across our Bill Fay reissues, which strikes the perfect balance of respecting the original release while aesthetically bringing it up to date. We’ll also be creating a couple of visualisers for the announce single, ‘Maudy La Lune’, and focus track, ‘Warwick Town’, to further establish the significance of some of this material.
Bill Fay always expressed that he was an uncomplicated and private person, and while the timing of this reissue is in part to close out the year of his death with some new material, it feels fitting that we aren’t going about things in an overly grand way. As the cold weather nears, warm yourselves with Bill’s magical early demos.