The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Faith Healer

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band's classic The Faith Healer took flight at the Reading Festival in 1973 – aided by a timely sunset.
Think of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and which of their songs first springs to mind?

“I’d rather it was The Faith Healer than Delilah,” SAHB guitarist Zal Cleminson told Classic Rock in 2007, clearly perturbed that many people might instead think of the novelty cover of a Tom Jones-popularised song that gave the Scotsmen a UK Top 10 hit in 1975.

A remarkable piece of rock theatre, The Faith Healer first appeared on the Next… album released two years earlier. At more than seven minutes long it was never destined to be a single, but it crystallised the band’s often disturbingly dark sense of drama into something truly magical. It also helped bring SAHB a gold album at the second attempt.

“I’ll never forget that song’s birth,” keyboard player Hugh McKenna recalled. “Next… was the only album that Alex [Harvey, frontman] and I locked ourselves into a room to write. Afterwards we wrote within the framework of the band, and with more input from Zal.”

Lyrics:
If your body's feelin' bad
And it's the only one you have
You want to take away the pain
Go out walkin' in the rain.
You watch the flowers go to bed,
Ask the man inside your head
Your spirit never has to grieve
All ya got to do's believe.
The faith healer
The faith healer

All ya got to do is feel
Your body's going to start to heal
The fingertips of holy fire
Everlasting sweet desire
It don't matter what the doctor said
The healer man will sail away
Immortality for two
The miracles, they will come to you

The faith healer
The faith healer
Can I put my hands on you?
Can I put my hands on you?
The faith healer
The faith healer

Faith, and hope and charity
The simple relativity
He can make you understand
All you've got to do is take his hand
It don't matter what somebody said
Ask the man inside your head
The fingertips of holy fire
Everlasting sweet desire

The faith healer
The faith healer
Let I put my hands on you
Let I put my hands on you
Let I put my hands on you
Let I put my hands on you
Let I put my hands on you
I just wan put my hands on you
The faith healer
The faith healer
The faith healer