Circle
‘Circle’ is the first of Roy’s epic songs and certainly not one that Shel could turn into a commercial success. It lasts over ten minutes and has five sections to it, including a spoken part – absolutely unique for its time. The song is the central point of the whole album.
Each of the sections involves different tempos and instrumentation.
The piece starts with Roy strumming on acoustic guitar to a subdued drumbeat. Then follows a spoken word section of a strained conversation between Roy and his dad over the sound of traffic. This leads to a faster sequence featuring drums and bass, and then subsides into a slower but more intense part augmented by strings with drums in the background. The mood builds in intensity with fast plucking of guitar, drums and strings coming in strongly, followed by a return to a softer section in which Roy’s voice rises at the end of each line to a falsetto. The strings appear again as the finale is reached.
A very ambitious and exacting piece of work that must have tested both Shel and Roy in the creating of the final successful recording, I can only imagine the conversations.
The lyrics deal with the constant pressure in Roy’s childhood to succeed, and success being measured in wealth. Roy’s father is addressing Roy about his accomplishments and Roy is responding. The topics move through Roy’s rejection of religion to his adolescent striving for importance and acceptance towards his realisation that the only thing he can be is himself. The song covers betrayal of relationships along with the inability to find answers. Roy’s final assertion is that all we can do is to live our lives.
The last spoken word is his Dad’s, who ironically, not understanding a word of the long introspection, says ‘Aye Lad – but I always knew you had it in you.’