So in my endeavours to keep things fresh and interesting for both you and I, I’ve gone with something completely different this week.
It didn’t start out that way, but it’s how it ended up. Who am I to argue with what is?
Here’s City of Death Pt 1, an instrumental track I wrote about our time in India last year. One of the things we did was take the night train from Rishikesh (or Haridwar Station) down to Varanasi.
We were in Sleeper Class for the 15 hour journey, which is pretty much at the low end of the spectrum when it comes to creature comforts.
The train trip by itself was an intense experience, but getting poured out the other end at Varanasi Train Station was a whole other kettle of fish altogether. It made the MCG on Preliminary Final day feel like a walk in the botanic gardens on a Sunday night.
I’ve written a fair bit in my journal about the experience and while trying to piece different things together about this aspect of the trip I realised I couldn’t nail it all in one song. So this first part is my attempt to put into music the emotion and intensity of the journey.
Next week we’ll deal with some of the specifics…
Instrumentation-wise, I relied on the cigar box guitar again for the main melody. My sitar, which I bought in Varanasi, is in the capable hands of Adam Cole at Valley Music getting repaired (is there anything with strings that bloke can’t fix?) so it wasn’t able to make its 52 songs debut unfortunately.
I dialled up an E on the tanpura, numbed my hands on the tabla, threw it all in the pot and bang.
Look forward to seeing you all at the Sorrento-Portsea RSL Club this Sunday for the Esperanto Dollars CD launch. It’s going to be a ripper.
