The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other

Studio album by Van der Graaf Generator

Released

February 1970

Recorded

11-14 December 1969

Studio

Trident Studios, London

Genre

Progressive rock

Length

43:50

Label

Charisma (UK)
Probe (US)

Producer

John Anthony

Van der Graaf Generator chronology

The Aerosol Grey Machine
(1969)

The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other
(1970)

H to He, Who Am the Only One
(1970)

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The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other is the second album by the British progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator, released in February 1970 on Charisma Records. It was the group's first album to be released in the UK and the only one to chart in the top 50 in that country.

The songs on the album were mostly composed by group leader Peter Hammill but arranged and rehearsed by the whole band. The lyrics covered a variety of themes including relationships with friends, witchcraft and apocalyptic catastrophes, while the music ranged from ballads such as "Refugees" to unusual and aggressive playing on "White Hammer" and "After the Flood". As well as a brief commercial success, the album was well received by critics and continues to be praised.

Although this is the second album in the Van der Graaf Generator catalogue, it was the first to be released in the UK, and the band considered it their first proper album. The earlier The Aerosol Grey Machine had been written and recorded as a solo record by singer and main songwriter Peter Hammill for Mercury Records. Through a deal worked out by manager Tony Stratton-Smith, the album was released under the Van der Graaf Generator name in exchange for a release from the group's contract.

The group began rehearsals for a new album in September 1969, practicing every day. Hammill wrote most of the songs and presented them to the band as finished pieces he could play along to, but arrangements were worked out by everyone in the group, particularly organist Hugh Banton and new member, saxophonist David Jackson, and the whole group improvised several pieces together. Banton had a background as a church organist, and he found his enthusiasm for modern French classic music combined well with Hammill's songwriting.

"Darkness (11/11)" got its title from being written on 11 November 1968, and was the first piece to feature Jackson's Roland Kirk influenced double horn section, playing alto and tenor saxophone simultaneously. "Refugees" was written by Hammill for ex-flatmates Mike McLean and Susan Penhaligon, while "White Hammer" was about the Malleus Maleficarum and witchcraft in the Middle Ages. "Whatever Would Robert Have Said?" referred to Robert J. Van de Graaff, the inventor of the Van de Graaff generator that the group took their name from. Jackson wrote the music to "Out of My Book" on piano, which was completed by Hammill on guitar.

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