Gather ye bairns, a couple tabs, and a pour yeself a pint o Brown, time for some canny tunes from the Toon!
As you can tell, i am a Midwestern Millennial, but Lindisfarne is one if my favorite bands. My mom is a Geordie, born and raised on the Tyne so i have spent more time in NW England than a lot of Southern Brits. I think Lindisfarne perfectly captures the spirit of Northumbira. Alan Hull wrote about 200 songs while working as a night nurse at a mental hospital in Newcastle, which is where Lady Eleanor was written. Geordies and Mackems might be tough blokes, but they are also very well read and educated compared to their Southern peers, and the lyrics of Lady Eleanor were inspired by Edgar Alan Poe's Eleonora and The Fall of the House of Usher. What i really like about Lindisfarne is the accessibility of the music compared to their contemporaries like Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and Pentangle.
As for the vinyl, for reasons i haven't been able to find, the American versions, with Nicely Out of Tune taking a radically different design. It isn't a traditional sleeve, but a pocket with a carboard instert to protect the vinyl (forgive Boudica's intrusion, she just loves the record player).
