Prelude To The Highlands
My Heart's In The Highlands
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Music by Pigni / Lyrics by Robert Burns After I had paid my tribute to the English bard I could not neglect the Scottish bard, Rabbie Burns ! If the arpeggio and vocal line on Sonnet 116 were quite delicate and refined, for this Scots poem I was looking for something very straightforward and simple musically (having already written songs with so many chords !), genuine and with no frills, like the Scots perhaps; I tried to keep it cantabile and close to the spirit of the lyrics which like many romantic poetry again deals with nature. I desperately wanted a pipe but of course the song was in the wrong key. Again I felt in order to enhance the sweetness of the lyrics that we needed a female voice, so I got in touch with Amanda Lehman of the Steve Hackett's band and an accomplished artist on her own and asked her if she wanted to sing and so here we are, thank you Amanda for your lovely sweet voice and great harmonies, it is just perfect ! In the meantime I felt the song had this sort of drone like a mantra and so I said to Luca: why don't we add some sitar, percussions etc. and eventually we ended up with a rather eastern-psychedelic-folk meets Clifford T Ward pastiche which could belong to the summer of 1967 and the short prelude on classical guitar was meant to be renamed Prelude to the Highlands, Himalaya starring Maharishi but I assumed my Scots friends could be offended ! |
