Songfacts®:

• This is another acoustic number from this concept album, and the one that has the most tentative connection with its subject matter – wine. "House Of Clocks" has a particularly beautiful melody even for an Al Stewart song, although it began life as "a total Dire Straits tune" like "Sultans Of Swing." It was very upbeat, he said, and "I kept running into the same problem with it," in particular there were so many guitar notes that he didn't have anywhere to put the words. Then someone at his record company, Miramar, suggested he record an acoustic version. After basically halving the number of notes, the finished product was something entirely different.
• Stewart said the inspiration for the song was or may have been his Victorian grandfather clock in England which he has been trying to ship to the States for the past ten years.
• Like the rest of the album, "House Of Clocks" was produced by his regular collaborator Laurence Juber. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3