The nominees for Best Instrumental Al Song are, in no particular order:
Denise At 16 (BI) -- A slow, pretty, acoustic guitar number. Al must like it because it's the only true instrumental to appear on EARLY YEARS.
Ghostly Horses Of The Plain (LDOTC) -- A slow, dreamlike, Spanish guitar number. Written by Al and Steve Recker and performed by the inimitable Peter White. If memory serves, it did have lyrics at one point in its life. We seem to remember Al singing them in a Philadelphia concert prior to the release of LAST DAYS.
A Small Fruit Song (ZSF) -- A slow, bluesish, acoustic guitar number with a few words at the end that Al Poll Central deems statistically insignificant. [Don't argue - we consider it on a par with a minor league baseball player called up in September of one year still being eligible for Rookie Of The Year next season.]
'Denise' picks up a very respectable 34 points, nearly as much as the rest of the field combined. Purists who don't consider 'A Small Fruit Song' an instrumental can take solace in the fact that it didn't come anywhere close to winning. We only counted it because we couldn't bear listing a song that scored in the single digits as a nominee.
1994 ASML "BEST OF AL" POLL -- INSTRUMENTAL AL SONGS
-------VOTES------- ----POINTS----
# SONG ALBUM T20 T10 T3 #1 WST POS NEG TOT
1. Denise at 16 BI 5 2 1 0 0 34 0 34
2. A Small Fruit Song ZSF 3 1 0 0 0 16 0 16
3. Ghostly Horses... LDOTC 3 1 0 0 0 12 0 12
4. Once An Orange... O 2 0 0 0 0 6 0 6
5. Room Of Roots ZSF 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 3
6. Burbling ZSF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7. Ivich BI 1 0 0 0 1 3 -5 -2
Pollster's notes: OK, OK, so this wasn't exactly the most competitive of categories. What do you expect from a guy who's known for his lyrics? It could've been worse -- we gave serious thought to awarding an Alistair for Best Al Spoken Word Piece ("The nominee is 'Clarence Frogman Henry'. May I have the envelope please?..." :-) Actually, Asya Kamsky sent me a tape a few years ago containing a hilarious concert snippet of Al hawking 'the official Al Stewart t-shirt'." That would've been my write-in vote.) - NS
