Led Zeppelin fans would know her as the only guest vocalist ever to sing with the band’s lead singer Robert Plant. The song? The Battle of Evermore.
But British folk singer-songwriter Sandy Denny (January 6, 1947, to April 21, 1978) stands tall on her own. Listen to Who Knows Where The Time Goes, a song she wrote as a 19-year-old that became one of her signature solos, to discover her special brand of magic.
Sandy first recorded it during her stint with the folk band The Strawbs in 1967. She later re-recorded it with the band Fairport Convention for their 1969 album Unhalfbricking. The song is most famous in this version.
Once you listen to this song, you can’t unhear either her voice or her lyrics. Sandy’s voice, pristine and powerful, has the power to send you to places you never knew existed. The introspective lyrics ground you. The song is a friend for life.
Sandy writes: Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving/ But how can they know it’s time for them to go?/ Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming/ I have no thought of time/ For who knows where the time goes?/ Who knows where the time goes?
The refrain, “Who knows where the time goes”, hits hard at any age.
“Her voice would go from a whisper to full throttle in the space of a line or two,” Richard Thompson, co-founder of Fairport Convention, said of Sandy in an interview. “Her style was original. Her phrasing was original. There’s nothing quite like Sandy. She had a very powerful voice. She was fabulously in tune.... No one ever heard Sandy sing out of tune in any situation.”
Many singers — Nina Simone, Judy Collins, Eva Cassidy — have sung cover versions of Who Knows Where The Time Goes, and have done a great job of it. But Sandy owns the song because she lives it.
Born Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny in Wimbledon, London, Sandy had a tumultuous, short life. She married her long-time boyfriend, Australian musician Trevor Lucas, in 1973, and had a baby girl, Georgia Rose, in 1977. But at the same time, she constantly struggled with self doubt, alcoholism and substance abuse. A fall down a flight of stairs tragically cut her life short at 31.
“I want to be happy,” she told the BBC in a 1972 interview. “I want to be happy in my work and one day I might reach something a little bit closer to the way I want it to go.”
That happiness never came. Like Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse, Sandy’s life unravelled all too soon. But her songs, cathartic and deeply wise, help us live another day.