It’s Still The Sixties In Peace City: “Which Way You Goin’ Billy” by The Poppy Family

If 1970 was largely about putting the sixties behind itself and creating a new sunrise, Vancouver’s Poppy Family reminded us not to forget about the now-concealed darkness. Concealed? The success of “Which Way You Goin’ Billy” came in the wake of the Kent State shootings, and the Vietnam War was not yet over. Moreover, The Poppy Family recorded the song and its parent album in 1969; Canada always knows more.

Terry Jacks, a big Buddy Holly fan, had originally written the song as “Which Way You Goin’ Buddy” but his then wife (and Poppy Family lead singer) Susan persuaded him to switch the song’s gender, possibly as a result of hearing “Billy, Billy Went A-Walkin’” by Montreal band The Beau Marks, or perhaps just in honour of Susan’s brother Billy.

The song was to be addressed from the perspective of the women left behind as their lovers and/or husbands were drafted into Vietnam and its recording was fraught. Several attempts at a lead vocal were made but Terry Jacks (who also produced the record) was unhappy with Susan’s singing; he reckoned that she sounded too happy for the song. There was a quarrel, following which Susan reluctantly went back into the studio the next morning to record an exhausted and emotionally drained (and distraught) vocal – that was exactly the performance Terry had been looking for, and only one take was needed.

In view of the above, it may not be a surprise that the pair’s marriage only lasted for six years. Unfortunately, on an aesthetic level Terry Jacks was right; Susan’s vocal is near-ghostly in its once-removed despair, and precisely what the song needs - and I thought of Margo Timmins of Toronto’s Cowboy Junkies, a generation later, as a direct aesthetic descendant. Its function here is as a pause – before we stride off into the future, we had better make sure that we don’t leave everything, or everybody, behind.

Date Record Made Number Two: 6 June 1970

Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 2

Records At Number One: “Everything Is Beautiful” by Ray Stevens and “The Long And Winding Road/For You Blue” by The Beatles

UK Chart Position: 7

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