Peter Hammil is an English musician who is mainly known for his work through the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator for which I made a feature back in June. His solo career more or less started simultaneously with the band in 1968. Once the band broke up in 1977 (but reunited in the early 2000’s), he had plenty of time to focus on his solo career. This has resulted in over 40 studio and live albums to date, next to the band’s 13 studio and additional live albums.
One of his solo albums is Out Of Water, which was released in February 1990 and is considered by him as a turning point from his mid-eighties style. it contains eight songs of which five last longer than 5 minutes. Of those eight songs, one stands out in particular as becomes evident throughout this post.
During mid-1991 Peter was informed by his parents that one of his late brother’s friends was looking for a copy of the song A Way Out, which is the last song on this album. As a response he sent a cassette of the album to that person, accompanied by a letter. This cassette and letter was obtained by me earlier this year and can now be seen below!
The cassette is a US copy which features a folded insert as the album’s sleeve. Unfolded it reveals credits and lyrics for all the songs.
The accompanied letter is dated the 2nd of September 1991 and nicely signed by Peter at the bottom. It refers to the fact that his parents told him about the recipient’s search of the song, Peter’s thoughts on the song and that he is sending another copy of the album to someone else of whom his wife took her own life. A Way Out may have been seen a fitting answer to deal with that trauma, considering that Peter’s brother took his own life as well, possibly during the late 80’s. The song was Peter’s personal response to that event. This was also the reason why the recipient of this letter wanted to have this song: to hear how Peter was dealing with his loss, but also to give the loss of his very good friend a place in his life.
The full letter can be seen below, though note that the name of the recipient has been removed because I feel that this is a sensitive and personal matter.
A full transcription of the letter can be found below:
My parents told me that you’d like to have a copy of “A Way Out” – since I’ve still got a number of cassettes from my (now defunct) US label, of the whole album, this seems the easiest way to send it to you.
In a way the song has become more universal for me now – partly because I’ve played it live quite a lot, and partly because that’s what songs should do … in any case. I didn’t want to do something too direct in the first place …. However, it happens that I’m sending another copy today to a friend of mine whose (estranged) wife has just killed herself after a long history of manic depression.
Well, anyway … songwriting is what I do, so – it’s my effort both to be involved and compassionate, to understand … and also to say no, it’s not an answer.
I hope you’re well … we’ll give you a call if ever we’re up there.
Since I like odd memorabilia, this was a must-have for me to own. So I’d like to thank the seller (who is a direct relative of the original recipient of the letter and cassette) for giving me the opportunity, but also the additional background information! It gives an interesting personal insight into one of Peter’s tragic life events.
