About the band: Roxy Music were a British rock band formed in 1970 by lead singer and main songwriter Bryan Ferry. Until their break-up in 1983 they were one of the most successful alternative art rock band in the UK and Europe - although their sound mellowed as time went on. It has been argued that Roxy Music are the second most influential British band after The Beatles. They released eight studio albums. Roxy Music currently have four songs in my list of about 200 best pop/rock songs of all time.
About the song: in 1972 Virginia plain was the first British hit of Roxy Music, and a classic example of how incredibly advanced they were for the early seventies. The song's lyrics comprise a fascinating fantasy about life in New York City, inspired by a painting of the same name that Ferry made in the Art Academy. Ferry's singing is awesome as usual, but also the instrumental contributions are fascinating, in particular Eno's synthesizer magic. Interestingly, the prominent guitar solo was wholly unpremeditated. Phil Manzanera later claimed to have simply played the first thing that came into his head and, a decade later, confessed that he'd never been able to reproduce it since then! The single made the UK top10, and was surprisingly left off the self-titled debut album, although it was included in the USA version. Run time 3:00.
