Solsbury Hill

Solsbury Hill was the first single to be taken from Peter’s debut solo album and was released in March 1977.

The song was written by Peter, recorded and mixed at The Soundstage, Toronto and produced by Bob Ezrin.

The original single cover uses a picture of Peter wearing the mirrored contact lenses he can also be seen wearing in the Hipgnosis artwork for the accompanying album. Some European single releases used a different image of Peter without the mirrored lenses.

First charted in the UK 9 April 1977, peaked at 13 and stayed in the Top 75 for 9 weeks. In the USA the single reached #68 on the Hot 100 on 21 May 1977, and spent 8 weeks on the chart.

“Its beautifully syncopated rhythm is utterly addictive” was the verdict of Caroline Coon in her single review for the Melody Maker.

Originally, no promo video was produced for the single, though one was created later under the direction of York Tillyer, encompassing a mixture of material shot by Peter, Graham Dean and Jerry Chater in 1990, elements shot by Peter and Peter Campus in 1977, some home movie footage and excerpts from the film ‘Cabbages’ by David Stewart and Wesley West.

“We did something with Solsbury Hill later, just messing around at Real World with a painter friend of mine Graham Dean. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have budget to do much in the way of video at that time.”

The song has been released as a single a number of times, including re-issues in 1982 (Old Gold) and 1990 (to promote the release of Shaking the Tree), but the original single was available solely as a 7″.

7″ CB301
Solsbury Hill
Moribund the Burgermeister