Paper Lace’s “Mary in the Morning”: A Soldier’s Tender Farewell to Love – A Song About Clinging to Love Amid the Chaos of War
When Paper Lace released “Mary in the Morning” in 1974 as part of their album …And Other Bits of Material”, it didn’t blaze onto the singles charts like their earlier smashes “The Night Chicago Died” (No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100) or “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” (No. 1 in the UK). Instead, this gentle ballad stayed tucked within the grooves of the LP, a quieter moment from a band known for its storytelling pop. The album itself, buoyed by those chart-toppers, peaked at No. 91 on the Billboard 200, a modest echo of their transatlantic fame. For those of us who flipped that record over in the fading light of the ’70s, “Mary in the Morning” wasn’t about chasing numbers—it was a soft ache pressed into vinyl, a song that lingered like a letter slipped under a door, calling us back to a time when transistor radios crackled with tales of love and loss, and the world felt both vast and achingly small.
The roots of “Mary in the Morning” stretch back to Nottingham, where Paper Lace—Phil Wright, Mick Vaughan, Cliff Fish, and Chris Morris—had risen from club gigs to stardom via Opportunity Knocks in ’73. Written by Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett, the song had first surfaced in ’71 with Fletcher’s own recording, but Paper Lace reshaped it into a poignant farewell. Picture the scene: a band riding high after two monster hits, fresh from a Royal Variety nod, now turning to something softer. Recorded amidst their whirlwind year, likely at Morgan Studios in London with producers Mitch Murray and Peter Callander, it’s a soldier’s lament—Wright’s voice trembling as he sings of leaving his Mary for war. Released as Vietnam’s shadow still loomed and the ’70s churned with change, it didn’t get the fanfare of their gangster epics, but it found a home with listeners who’d known the sting of goodbye, a B-side whisper in a loud, brash world.
At its core, “Mary in the Morning” is a heart-wrenching snapshot of love interrupted, a young man torn from his sweetheart by duty’s cold hand. “I must leave my Mary come tomorrow,” Wright sings, his tone heavy with dread, “go where my place is by her side”—yet he’s bound for battle, not her arms. It’s a universal ache—“each one has a Mary in the morning that we may never see again”—a soldier’s fear that dawn might steal more than sleep. The melody sways like a slow dance interrupted, a plea wrapped in na-na-nas that feel like tears held back. For those of us who grew up then, it’s a memory of simpler days tinged with war’s echo—the flicker of a TV newsreel, the scratch of a pen on a letter home, the way Paper Lace bottled that fragile hope of reunion. It’s the ’70s in a quiet corner—platform shoes scuffed from pacing, a bedside lamp glowing late, a song that knew love’s weight when the world turned away.
This wasn’t the Rollers’ tartan flash or ABBA’s dazzle—it was Paper Lace at their rawest, a band of Nottingham dreamers who’d stumbled into fame and found a way to pause the party. “Mary in the Morning” never got the spotlight of their chart peaks, but it lived in live sets and lingered in fans’ hearts, a testament to their knack for stories that stuck. By ’76, the lineup shifted—Vaughan and Morris out, new faces in—but this song stayed a relic of their peak, resurfacing in nostalgia compilations like a photo found in an old drawer. For older ears, it’s a bridge to those bittersweet years—when you’d save pocket money for a record, when their Top of the Pops grins lit up the screen, when music could carry a soldier’s sigh across decades. Spin that old LP, let it crackle, and you’re back—the hum of a fan on a summer night, the weight of a duffel bag by the door, the way “Mary in the Morning” held a love we all prayed would wait, a melody as timeless as the dawn it mourns.