Ep.14. Water

I take walks to Lake Michigan as often as I can, almost every day in the summer. I find it to be the greatest source of inspiration for playing music. A few weeks ago I went out, and it was about 30 degrees F, and there were these rings made of shards of ice floating around. You could think of them as rafts bumping into each other, with enough space to move a few inches, as far as you could see, and there were stray shards of ice that would sink between them as the circles met, and rise back up as they fell apart. It sounded like an ocean of giant chandeliers, pulsing very gently with the rate of your breath. I'd never seen anything like it before. It was especially clear that day why I love going to the lake, but I think we can all get that same feeling when we see an ocean or a waterfall or a river or a lake. I think the sheer power of water, even if it's only hinted at, makes us and our problems feel small, and puts everything in perspective.

1. Jimi Hendrix - "May This Be Love" (1967)


From the very beginning you can hear the flowing form of Jimi's guitar. His guitar playing is brilliant throughout the entire song (as it always is), although subtle compared to most of his work. Jimi tells you "Waterfall, nothing can harm me at all, My worries seem so very small, with my waterfall", but shows you with his solo beginning at 1:50, that reveals how deep the inspiration goes. The solo is played almost entirely on a single string, and consists of a series of highly dynamic, nearly continuous slides, with sublime volume control (sometimes he picks the strings, but much of the time he is tapping or pulling off or sliding without picking, allowing more delicate volume control), which allows him to glide vertically up and down the neck. If a guitar solo could ever flow like a waterfall, it would sound like this.

2. Bunny Wailer - "Dreamland" (1976)


It's never mentioned explicitly that the Dreamland is an island, but the music and the vibe imply island. The story of this song, which includes "we'll take a ride on the waterfall", has the spirit inspired by water, which is that life should be a dreamland where only awesome things happen and there are no worries. Worries aren't even mentioned. It's all good. Of course we all know this is unrealistic, but we also all know that this is how it should be, and so the song is both beautifully positive and also a bit tragic. The first several lines and the last few lines repeat twice. The first time through contains all major chords, which we associate with happiness. When the line is repeated by a chorus, the chord progression is the same except that the last chord is replaced with a minor chord, which are typically on the somber side. So it's like Bunny dreams the dream, and the repetition is his conscious that knows it's only a dream.

3. Brad Mehldau - "When It Rains" (2001)


You're sitting by the window in your house in the middle of a meadow surrounded by trees without leaves, staring out into an increasingly cloudy sky, until it finally begins to drizzle. In a future world where speakers are distributed throughout every wall and your sound system automatically plays the perfect music, "When It Rains" by Brad Mehldau begins. That random sound of rain drops, where it can go for several seconds in silence or it can sound like fast tapping. And the rain intensifies over a span of just a few minutes, until the rain is pelting your windows and it becomes dark at 3pm. But it's all good because the song is perfect, with the increasingly intense, unpredictable piano and heavy snare hits.

4. Alison Krauss - "Down To The River To Pray" (2000)


Alison Krauss has such a mellow, yet emotionally-charged voice. The low, murmuring backup vocals mimic the soft roar of a river (will only come through if turned up with decent speakers). A capella - sounds so simple and raw. At first I thought, going down to the river to pray, sounds a bit hokey, it's just some religious thing, but after thinking about it, going down to the river to pray and asking for the lord to show you the way is really a way of admitting that you're not whole, that you are doing something wrong, and you don't know exactly what it is. You could say it's the same internal struggle we all deal with, making it relatable (if you want it to be), which is amazing considering the song was written by someone from a different walk of life (a slave woman) and a different time (150 years ago).