'Magical and transporting . . . Wayward proves that Bunyan has lived
the best possible life, on her own idiosyncratic terms'
Maggie O'Farrell
'A gorgeous account of outsiderness and survival: a map of how to live
outside the boundaries and of striving for an authentic artistic life. A
quietly defiant and moving work'
Sinéad Gleeson
'An epic in miniature . . . I loved - and lived - every sentence**'**
Benjamin Myers
**
In 1968, Vashti Bunyan gave up everything and everybody she knew in
London to take to the road with a horse, wagon, dog, guitar and her then
partner.**
They made the long journey up to the Outer Hebrides in an odyssey of
discovery and heartbreak, full of the joy of freedom and the trudge of
everyday reality, sleeping in the woods, fighting freezing winters and
homelessness.
Along the way, Vashti wrote the songs that would lead to the recording
of her 1970's album Just Another Diamond Day, the lilting lyrics and
guitar conveying innocent wonder at the world around her, whilst
disguising a deeper turmoil under the surface.
From an unconventional childhood in post-war London, to a fledgling
career in mid-sixties pop - recording a single written by Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards - to the despair and failure to make any headway with
her own songs, she rejected the music world altogether and left it all
behind. After retreating to a musical wilderness for thirty years, the
rediscovery of her recordings in 2000 brought Vashti a second chance to
write, record and perform once more.
One of the great hippie myths of the 1960s, Wayward, Just Another Life
to Live, rewrites the narrative of a barefoot girl on the road to
describe a life lived at full tilt from the first, revealing what it
means to change course and her emotional struggle, learning to take back
control of her own life.
