Python Lee Jackson - In A Broken Dream

Wake up, Rock Song of the Week audience, I think I’ve got something to say to you. For the very few of you that are likely out of the loop on this opening line, possibly from having not heard the song we’ve plumped for as our pick this week, the man himself Rod Stewart filled in as a guest vocalist for Python Lee Jackson for a few studio sessions in the late 60s and apparently gave it a hundred and eighty seven percent of his effort, because the vocal performance here is spectacular. Say what you will about Sailing; Rod Stewart is a man with a serious set of pipes on him. 

But let’s not focus too hard on just the guest vocalist, no matter how serious his pipes. Python Lee Jackson were knocking around in one iteration or another from 1965 to 1972 and, if we’re being completely honest, didn’t exactly set the world on fire at any point during that tenure. As the Australian-cum-English band played with different members and sounds for basically their entire run they never quite found a foothold, breaking up numerous times and finding themselves washed up in the bottom end of a few charts. Still, their sound at it’s best was pretty solid – a bluesy, rock sound that didn’t exactly stand out in the era but is solid enough to be enjoyable today. 

So why exactly have we picked a song from a band I haven’t exactly just given a glowing review to for our Rock Song of the Week pick this week? Well, it’s actually a genuinely great track, not least because of solid Rod’s incredible pipes (Editor’s Note: please don’t refer to anything like that ever again). The song itself was actually missed out on when it was initially released; only a 1972 re-release saw it chart highly and find radio play, but the band breaking up for the final time later that year and for good put paid to any notion of Python Lee Jackson making the big time out of it. So, we nudge you gently to enjoy their finest piece of work this week, hopefully free from the bias I forced on you for an entire article. Sometimes it takes two goes to make a thing work. Or, in the case of my morning alarm, one hundred and eighty seven goes.