Dragonfly is a setting by Danny Kirwan of W. H. Davies's poem The Dragon Fly, released as Fleetwood Mac's sixth single in 1971. It was the last of the group's single A-sides not to be featured on any accompanying album although it would show up on the Greatest Hits compilation later that year.
Neither Jeremy Spencer nor Christine McVie featured on the track although they did both play on its B-side The Purple Dancer, the only studio recording to feature both musicians as full group members.
Original poem details[]
The poem was written by the Welsh poet W. H. Davies and published in 1927. It paid tribute to the sight of a dragonfly landing in his garden. The original poem is much longer - Kirwan's setting only features shortened versions of the first two stanzas.
W. H. Davies[]
William Henry Davies was born in Wales in 1871. He began writing poetry in his teens but struggled to fit into employment in adulthood. Eventually he adopted an itinerant lifestyle, travelling, often without shelter at night and working wherever he could. It was during this period that he lost a leg while attempting to jump a freight train in Canada in 1999. His chronicle of these years, The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, was published in 1908.
The Dragonfly was first published in 1927 in Davies' anthology A Poet's Calendar representing August 15th-31st.
He died in 1940.
Personnel[]
Danny Kirwan - vocals, guitars
John McVie - bass
Mick Fleetwood - drums