Leave to Remain (album) Leave to Remain (album) Leave to Remain is the sixth studio album by Kathryn Williams released on CAW Records on 1 October 2006. It was her first to feature Kate St John who would produce her next solo album, "The Quickening", in 2010. The track 'Stevie' on the album refers to the poet and novelist Stevie Smith with its chorus echoing the title of her poem 'Not Waving But Drowning' . The song premiered at 'The Beat Goes On' at the Royal Albert Hall in 2005, an event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1965 International Poetry Incarnation at
Not Waving but Drowning after what she described as a difficult childhood and her struggle with the fact that her father abandoned her. Like many of Smith's poems, "Not Waving but Drowning" is short, consisting of only twelve lines. The narrative takes place from a third-person perspective and describes the circumstances surrounding the "dead man" described in line one. In line five the poem suggests that the man who has died "always loved larking," which causes his distress signals to be discounted. The image that Smith attached to the poem shows the form of a girl from the waist up with her wet hair