Arguably this song is a few months late, with its references to Winter, December and in particular Christmas. But on the other hand Merle Haggard’s song does look forward to the Summer, and better times ahead. Either way, Wyndham Baird’s take on the song strips it down to its acoustic essentials, and it becomes a really intimate and moving thing. It’s a song that Wyndham Baird learnt at his mother’s request, and it opens his new debut album ‘After the Morning‘ which is released on Jalopy Records on May 31st.
Wyndham Baird’s first move into music came during his student years, when he saw buskers making money whilst his student debt just grew and grew. As he relates it: “I wasn’t happy doing that. Trying to conform to the way society was set up, I just wasn’t buying into it. I quit school. I knew that I would be happy playing music and was otherwise struggling to feel alright.”
And he went all in to follow a path laid down by his musical inspirers, notably Bob Dylan and the beat writers. He bought a bus ticket to a city in Georgia where Dylan was playing, set up his guitar and opened his case in the parking lot, then started singing, scoring a ticket to the show and a place to sleep that night. “I realized that I could at least survive. I would busk and travel around. They’d drop money in your case and you’d go and get a sandwich. That was a real, palpable thing.”
