No Mule's Fool

Family's third UK single — and their first to chart, peaking at UK #29. Released on Reprise (RS 27001), with picture sleeve breaking the previous label-bag convention. John Peel flagged the imminent release while reviewing the band's Buxton indoor festival set earlier that month. NME: "A disc that takes a few spins to get into, but will be worth it in the end." Melody Maker: "It looks like they are going to make it with 'No Mule's Fool'."

Both A-side and B-side were the last two Family recordings to feature Jim King, cut before his departure to form Ring Of Truth with Victor Brox. Poli Palmer overdubbed instruments at the tail end of these same sessions, then took over fully for the A Song For Me album proper. Per Robert M. Corich's 1998 sleeve essay, the single was a deliberate departure from previous Family release strategy: "The songs for the single were recorded during a different session from the album, specifically with the intention of creating a single separate from an album release… unlike previous single releases from Family it was not issued merely to advertise the next project, but as an independent recording in its own right."

Chapman, on the hit-single question to Nick Logan in NME (c. 28 February 1970, looking back from the A Song For Me-era perspective): "The group would welcome a hit in the singles chart… If we have a hit, just by that one thing we can reach a hell of a lot of people. At the moment we are not near the popularity of Tull. What is the use of playing music and only trying to please a certain kind of people?" On the reciprocal selling-out charge: "You can't say I dig Family one day and the next say you don't any more because they have a hit single." (See Press Archive: A Song For Me — sleeve notes by Robert M. Corich.)