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  • Wayward

  • Just Another Life to Live
  • By: Vashti Bunyan
  • Narrated by: Vashti Bunyan
  • Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (27 ratings)

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Wayward

By: Vashti Bunyan
Narrated by: Vashti Bunyan
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Summary

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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Vashti Bunyan (P)2022 Orion Publishing Group
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Critic reviews

This is a magical and transporting memoir, relating how Bunyan ducked out of the London music scene, instead choosing to make her way - by foot and wagon - to the Outer Hebrides. Her mesmerising viewpoint and lyrical outlook on life will be familiar to anyone who, like me, loves her music, but 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)
Vashti Bunyan possesses one of the purest voices English music has ever produced, and now that unique otherness translates to literature. Wayward is an epic in miniature, a mythical tale with echoes of her ancestor John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, made all the more magical by the fact it actually happened. I loved - and lived - every sentence (Benjamin Myers)

What listeners say about Wayward

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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful memoir.

What a beautiful story and memoir. Wonderful. Also in case you don’t know her music.

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Just beautiful - a lullaby of a listen

It is an absolute pleasure to go on this pilgrimage into Vashti Bunyan’s life, in her own words and read in her own voice. Can’t recommend highly enough.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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an amazing life story by my favourite songwriter

i didnt expect this to be as brilliant as it was. Vashti is the most underrated writer of today

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i like it !

Wow. What a story .Told so honestly and openly from a time , which seems so far in the past it feels like hundreds of years ago when really it was still within my lifetime( just). This is my first Audiobook and I was mesmerized by Vashtis voice in the same way I am to all her music. Im a little in love. Thank You Vashti . This book has made me the opposite of depressed . ❤

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Touching Storytelling of an Extraordinary Life

Vashti recounts her life’s journey in her soft, gentle voice that personified her beautiful music. Wonderful listening. Thank you.

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Exquisite

This is a perfect read for a golden September/October.

My partner & I love to read together & have been listening to Vashti read to us for the past couple of weeks.

When she mentions her songs we pause the book & play the relevant song. It's all been a delight.

Vashti reads her life beautifully.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Review - Wayward : Just Another Life to Live

I have been interested in the life of Vashti Bunyan for many years and enjoyed her music for just as long. I was also very interested to know of what happened to her before, during and after her pilgrimage and this story answered all my questions. Very emotional, highly interesting and full of ups, downs, joys and disappointments of someone following their dreams but in the end, coming to terms with understanding who they are. The delivery by the author however is not great and I struggled to hear what she was saying much of the time, a problem solved by constant rewinds due to her almost at times whispering dialogue. I was looking to download the enclosed .pdf version as a book but sadly this contains only a very few number of pages.

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