Pretty Golden Hair by Al Stewart

Album: Bedsitter Images (1967)

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This is an unusual song and one which mirrors Stewart's later "Old Compton Street Blues." The owner of the pretty golden hair here is surprisingly a young man who moves to the capital where he takes a mundane job of which he soon tires, and although possibly not homosexual he resorts to selling his body to finance a better standard of living. As usual though, it all goes sadly wrong, and as he grows older he moves progressively downmarket and ends up soliciting in public toilets. The song ends with his suicide.
It may be that unlike "Old Compton Street Blues," Stewart based this on someone he actually knew, though probably not personally. In the song, the boy with golden hair is sent away to boarding school. Stewart was sent to boarding school by his widowed mother, and it may be that he heard this sad tale of an old boy from his contemporaries. >>>
Suggestion credit:
Alexander - London, England, for above 2

Comments: 2

Walden from MilwaukeeThe song is clearly about the life of a rent boy who grows old but still tries to turn tricks. He sadly finds he can no longer command the high prices that he did when he was young and pretty. Having based his whole lifestyle on selling his young body, he has nothing to fall back on once his youthful beauty fades. It's a dark and poignant song. I would very much like to know if the song was inspired by a person Al knew, or what the inspiration was.
Bill from San Francisco, CaI believe the second comment is pure conjecture, with no backup from the biography or anything I've ever heard Al say.

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