Just Another Diamond Day is a folk album so delicate it nearly disappeared forever. Recorded in 1970 after a literal pilgrimage by horse-drawn cart, it sold almost nothing and was shelved for decades. Now it’s a quiet masterpiece of pastoral bliss that sounds like spring after a very long winter.
This album begins with a horse-drawn cart. Not metaphorically — Vashti Bunyan actually walked from London to the Isle of Skye in 1968, pulling a converted gypsy wagon with her boyfriend, a dog, and a bag of seeds. She wrote these songs along the way, and they still smell of wet grass and woodsmoke.
By 1970 she had landed at Sound Techniques in Chelsea with producer Joe Boyd, fresh off his work with Nick Drake and Fairport Convention. Boyd had spotted her at the Royal Albert Hall two years earlier — a shy girl with a guitar who looked like she might bolt. He signed her anyway.
The session musicians read like the Mount Rushmore of British folk. Simon Nicol on acoustic guitar, Dave Swarbrick on violin, Robin Williamson on penny whistle and jew’s harp, plus Ian Whiteman on piano. They played like they were in a living room, not a studio. Engineer John Wood captured every breath.
The first song, “Diamond Day,” opens with a single fingerpicked guitar and Bunyan’s voice — small and clear, no vibrato, no drama. She sounds like she’s singing to herself in a sunlit field. The whole album stays there.
“Rainbow River” has Swarbrick’s violin weaving through the verses like a stream. “Lily Pond” is practically a haiku: one verse, repeated, with a penny whistle that sounds like it was cut from a branch that morning. Nothing overstays. Nothing strains.
The record sold fewer than fifty copies in its original run. Bunyan was so crushed she left music entirely, had children, painted houses, disappeared into the Scottish countryside for thirty years. She didn’t even own a copy of her own album.
Then in 2000, a CD reissue appeared. Then another. People started calling it a lost masterpiece. The songs — simple, acoustic, impossibly gentle — found an audience they had waited three decades for. Josh Tillman (Father John Misty) once said it sounds like “music from before the fall.”
“Glow Worms” is the quietest track here. Just voice, guitar, and a faint harmonium. Bunyan sings about tiny lights in the grass, and you realize she really saw them. That cart journey gave her the time to look.
The record ends with “Just Another Diamond Day,” a title that sounds like a shrug but feels like a benediction. She sings it twice through, adds a wordless verse, and then it’s over. Forty years after the fact, it finally found its audience. Some records just take the long way home.
🎵 Key Takeaways
- Bunyan walked from London to Skye in 1968, writing these songs.
- "Diamond Day" opens with fingerpicked guitar and her small clear voice.
- "Rainbow River" has Swarbrick's violin weaving like a stream.
- "Lily Pond" is a haiku: one verse repeated with penny whistle.
- The album sold fewer than fifty copies in its original run.
- "Glow Worms" is just voice, guitar, and faint harmonium.
Why did Vashti Bunyan leave music for so long after Just Another Diamond Day?
The album sold almost nothing, and Bunyan was deeply discouraged. She moved to the Scottish island of Berneray, had children, and lived a quiet life without a record player for thirty years. She only learned of the album's cult status in the late 1990s.
Who played on Just Another Diamond Day?
The core musicians were Simon Nicol (guitar) and Dave Swarbrick (violin) from Fairport Convention, plus Robin Williamson (penny whistle, jew's harp) of The Incredible String Band. Ian Whiteman played piano and harmonium. Nick Drake is rumored to have contributed soft backing vocals, though it has never been confirmed.
What happened to the original master tapes of Just Another Diamond Day?
The master tapes were believed lost for decades. They turned up in the early 2000s in a box stored by Joe Boyd, which allowed for a proper remastered reissue. Spinney Records released the first CD version in 2000, and it has been in print ever since.