At Lucille Wright’s funeral Mass the other day Jay Dameron sang Morning Has Broken.  As he did so, I consulted the hymn book and thumbed to the tune just to see who got the credit for writing it.  A lady named Eleanor Farjeon was listed.

I knew that Cat Stevens had lifted it from somewhere when he covered it on his Tea for Tillerman album.  What I didn’t know until just now is that Rick Wakeman of Yes fame was responsible for all of the piano orchestration at the beginning and throughout the song.

In the video below Rick discusses how he contributed to the musical background on the song.  He recounts how Cat Stevens overheard him practicing on a tune he was writing Catherine Howard and liked it enough to ask him to play that on Morning Has Broken.  Rick is funny about it as he notes that he received all of $12 compensation for his work.  After discussing his role in the song he plays it here at the 5:19 mark.  Even if it is a Church hymn, it’s not bad.  

At Lucille Wright’s funeral Mass the other day Jay Dameron sang Morning Has Broken.  As he did so, I consulted the hymn book and thumbed to the tune just to see who got the credit for writing it.  A lady named Eleanor Farjeon was listed.

I knew that Cat Stevens had lifted it from somewhere when he covered it on his Tea for Tillerman album.  What I didn’t know until just now is that Rick Wakeman of Yes fame was responsible for all of the piano orchestration at the beginning and throughout the song.

In the video below Rick discusses how he contributed to the musical background on the song.  He recounts how Cat Stevens overheard him practicing on a tune he was writing Catherine Howard and liked it enough to ask him to play that on Morning Has Broken.  Rick is funny about it as he notes that he received all of $12 compensation for his work.  After discussing his role in the song he plays it here at the 5:19 mark.  Even if it is a Church hymn, it’s not bad.