The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

"The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" was the third album by The Incredible String Band, released in March 1968 on the Elektra label. It is regarded by many as a quintessential example of hippie culture, with its promotion of ideas such as communal living, eastern mysticism and rationalistic pantheism. The album features a series of vividly dreamlike Robin Williamson songs, such as "The Minotaur's Song", a surreal music-hall parody sung from the point of view of the mythical beast. Its centrepiece is Mike Heron's "A Very Cellular Song", a 13-minute reflection on life, love, and amoebas, whose complex structure incorporates a Bahamian spiritual ("I Bid You Goodnight", originally recorded by the Pinder Family). The last part of "A Very Cellular Song", "May the Long Time Sun Shine", is sometimes wrongly referred to as a Sikh hymn or an Irish blessing, but is in fact an original song written by Mike Heron. The album's layered production style employs multitrack recording techniques and a very wide array of instruments from across the world, including sitar, gimbri, shenai, oud, harpsichord, panpipes, and kazoo. The album's cover art - which on original LP issues was the back cover, as the front showed just Williamson and Heron - consists of a photograph taken on Christmas Day 1967. It shows both musicians, their girlfriends Licorice McKechnie and Rose Simpson, friends Roger Marshall and Nicky Walton, several children of their friend Mary Stewart, and Robin's dog Leaf.