Story of the song: Wishing Well by Free

Free were the heavyweights of the late-Sixties British denim’n’blues scene. By the summer of 1972 Paul Kossoff, one of the finest rock guitarists, was crashing in a one-man pharmaceutical pile-up. When he made it on stage, Kossoff missed his cues or fell into the drum kit. He pulled out of a Japanese tour to undergo neuro-electric therapy, and at a Newcastle gig he eventually imploded in a drug-induced epileptic fit.

For the sessions that spawned their valedictory album Heartbreaker, a Kossoff soundalike, “Snuffy” Walden, was brought in, as studio insurance.

“Wishing Well”, the lead track, was cut by an expanded Free, which included Traffic’s congo player, Rebop Kwaku Baah (heard to better effect in the sparser US single mix). Paul Rodgers sings: “Throw down your gun, you might shoot yourself/ Or is that what you’re tryin’ to do?” It’s not clear whether this is about Free’s half-departed guitarist, as the lyrics suggest: Rodgers has denied it. The original video is now on the DVD, Free Forever. Writing credits are given to the full band, but in truth it was Rodgers’s song.

“Wishing Well” was Free’s final foray into the Top 10. Rodgers and Simon Kirke jumped ship as Bad Company; Kossoff dived into a tailspin with his own outfit, Back Street Crawler. He never quite managed to combat his drug addiction and died in 1976 as the flight he was on neared New York.

On the eve of the Iraq war, Rodgers was at a Labour Party conference at the invitation of Tony Blair, a lifelong Free fan. Rodgers had the gathering singing along to the middle eight of “Wishing Well” – “Love in a peaceful world…” He said: “I was hoping the words would sink in. But we still went to war.”