Ashes Are Burning is the fourth studio album by the English progressive rock band Renaissance, released in 1973 (see 1973 in music). It was the first of several Renaissance albums to feature (on some songs) an orchestra playing along with the band. It was the band's first album to make the Billboard 200 album chart, peaking at No. 171. Background and recording With Ashes Are Burning Renaissance made a deliberate choice to head in a more acoustic direction, in order to accommodate their folk-influenced style and differentiate themselves from the many electric guitar-dominated bands on the scene. Because Renaissance were between guitarists at the time, bassist Jon Camp played most of the guitars on the album. Michael Dunford, who had been working with Renaissance in a composer-only role, also played acoustic guitar on a few tracks. He later rejoined the band, but only after Ashes Are Burning had been released, so he is accordingly listed as a guest musician. Most of the songwriting for the album was handled through the mail. Dunford would send a tape containing a melody line to Betty Thatcher, who composed the lyrics, and Dunford then mailed a tape of himself singing the completed song to Renaissance, who put together the arrangements in the studio. After setting up to record at De Lane Lea Studios, the band brought on Dick Plant, an engineer at the studios, as co-producer. The band were impressed with his work on the album, leading them to retain him as co-producer for their next album. Songs The song "Can You Understand?" uses a quote from "Tonya and Yuri Arrive at Varykino", a theme from Maurice Jarre's score for Doctor Zhivago. According to David Samuel Barr, a friend of the band who wrote the liner notes for the Tales of 1001 Nights compilation, Dunford had thought this melody to be a public domain Russian folk tune. Because of confusion over the Jarre quote, some live collections (including Live at the Royal Albert Hall : King Biscuit Flower Hour Vol. 1 and some unauthorised releases) mistakenly credit "Can You Understand?" entirely to Jarre. "Can You Understand?" is also cited by Jon Camp as being a case where he and John Tout made major compositional contributions without being credited for them. Terry Sullivan has corroborated that the intro to "Can You Understand?" was composed by Camp and Tout, not Dunford. The song "On the Frontier"