Bed-Sitter Images Explained

Bedsitter Images
Type:	studio
Artist:	Al Stewart
Cover:	Bed Sitter Images.jpg
Caption:	Original album cover - 1967
Released:	6 October 1967
Recorded:	September 1967
Genre:	Folk^[1] baroque folk
Length:	41:28 (1967 release)
Label:	CBS
Producer:	Roy Guest
Next Title:	Love Chronicles
Next Year:	1969

Bed Sitter Images is the debut studio album of folk artist Al Stewart, released in 1967, and again in a revised edition with a new cover picture in 1970. The songs were orchestrated by Alexander Faris. The cover of the first 1967 edition spells "Bed Sitter" without a hyphen, as do many reviews and Al Stewart's official website. The album and its title track are both named on the record label as Bedsitter Images, with neither hyphen nor space between 'Bed' and 'sitter'.

The album is commercially available as part of a 2-CD box set To Whom It May Concern, which contains Stewart's first three albums as well as both sides of his first single and the tracks added to the 1970 re-release, which also featured a new cover, and was known as The First Album (Bed-Sitter Images). A new CD reissue in 2007 (Collectors' Choice Music) contains all tracks from both versions of the album, plus bonus tracks.

The album has also been released in Japan as The News from Spain (The First Album), with the addition of some later recordings by Stewart.

Track listing

1967 release

Side 1

1. "Bedsitter Images" – 3:20
2. "Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres" – 3:59
3. "The Carmichaels" – 2:52
4. "Scandinavian Girl" – 2:35
5. "Pretty Golden Hair" – 3:39
6. "Denise at 16" – 3:18

Side 2

1. "Samuel, Oh How You've Changed" – 4:00
2. "Cleave to Me" – 2:53
3. "A Long Way Down from Stephanie" – 3:27
4. "Ivich" – 4:24
5. "Beleeka Doodle Day" – 6:57

1970 UK Re-release

All songs written by Al Stewart except where noted

Side 1

1. "Lover Man" (Mike Heron) – 2:31
2. "Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres" – 3:59
3. "The Carmichaels" – 2:52
4. "Clifton in the Rain" – 2:41
5. "Bed Sitter Images" – 3:20

Side 2

1. "Denise at 16" – 3:18
2. "Samuel, Oh How You've Changed!" – 4:00
3. "A Long Way Down from Stephanie" – 3:27
4. "Ivich" – 4:24
5. "Beleeka Doodle Day" – 6:57

2007 Collectors' Choice Music edition bonus tracks

• "Go Your Way" – 1:51
• "My Contemporaries" – 0:30

Personnel

• Al Stewart – guitar, vocals
• Alexander Faris – conductor, orchestral arrangements

Technical

• Mike Claydon – engineer
• Sophie Litchfield – photography

References

• AlStewart.com: Bedsitter Images
• AlStewart.com: The First Album (Bedsitter Images)

Notes and References

1. Book: Larkin, Colin. All-Time Top 1000 Albums. https://archive.org/details/alltimetop1000al0000lark_d7o0/mode/1up. 1999. October 8, 2021. Virgin Books. 0-7535-0354-9. 172.