It’s a song so profound and burdened with deep thoughts that it seems impossible that it was written by someone not even out of her teens. And it’s been recorded countless times, as artist after artist tries to get on its plaintive wavelength.
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But as the saying goes, everybody else is playing for second when it comes to recording or singing “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” Sandy Denny, who wrote the song, gave the ultimate reading of it with The Fairport Convention. She evoked the elusive quality of the lyrics with her guileless, aching vocals.
“Time” Passages
The story goes that “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” was the second song ever written by Sandy Denny. It would follow her the rest of her career and life, a cause of consternation in that many people didn’t go much deeper into her catalog. She started to make an impact on the British folk music scene in the mid-60s, even before she’d hit the age of 20, both by interpreting the songs of others and delivering her own originals.
Denny did a demo of the song in 1967. Her brief time in the band The Strawbs also allowed her to record the song around that time, but that version would sit on the shelf until 1973. In the interim, “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” found its way to Judy Collins, who recorded it and used it as the title track to a 1968 album.
Denny still hadn’t put her stamp on it, however, at least not in terms of a recording that others could hear. That opportunity came in 1969, by which time she’d joined Fairport Convention. FC represented the leading lights of folk rock in Great Britain and featured Richard Thompson on guitar and vocals.
Thompson lends his just-right touch on guitar to the band’s recording of “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?”, featured on the band’s 1969 classic Unhalfbricking. But he wisely keeps the playing to a minimum to clear the way for Denny’s stunning vocal. It somehow manages to be uplifting and heartbreaking all at once.
Exploring the Lyrics of “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?”
An original title for “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” was “The Ballad Of Time”. That’s apropos, because the song attempts to come to grips with the concept. It deals with how we have to resign ourselves to the calendar changing everything and everyone, even as this phenomenon inevitably causes melancholy and unease.
Denny paints a vivid picture in the opening line: “Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving.” She marvels at their instinct, comparing it to her own tendency to cling to a moment. “Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming,” she exclaims. “I have no thought of time.”
In the second verse, Denny personifies and addresses her surroundings. “Sad, deserted shore, all your friends are leaving,” she notes. “Ah, but you know it’s time for them to go.” Again, she attempts to remain a constant in an ephemeral world. “I have no thought of leaving,” she insists.
The final verse brings the song to a personal level. We find out that her musings on time are rooted in her anticipation of her love leaving her behind. Even in the face of all this, she obdurately resists time’s machinations.
And why should she give in to the unknowable? “For who knows how my love grows?” she asks. “And who knows where the time goes?” Sandy Denny’s most famous song remains catnip for singers of all stripes. But her version with Fairport Convention, like the character within the song, stands against the tide and time, unassailable.
Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images
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