Flying River Live, track 5: “Comet” | Limitations are essential in the creative process. Even arbitrary limitations can be very creatively stimulating. For Flying River, the limitation we imposed very early in the process was that the album takes place in 1912 (for reasons that would bring me over my word count to unpack!). We started by printing the “Notable Events of 1912” Wikipedia page and highlighted events that we felt carried symbolic, poetic or archetypal resonance.
One such event was the famous Holbrook meteorite shower in Navajo County, Arizona on July 19, 1912. Eye-witnesses described a terrifying and awe-inspiring experience of watching a fireball explode in the sky followed by a shower of thousands of meteorites. The instrumental of the song that became “Comet” somehow called to mind the image of a comet hurtling through the sky, so we ran with it.
Down the road, we called in our friend and master songwriter Peter Oren to collaborate on the libretto. We began by sitting down and discussing the archetype of the comet. In the course of that conversation, Andy told us a story from his recent experience running audio for a reality TV show shot within a county jail in the middle of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The story was of a man who, upon being released from jail, didn’t have anyone to pick him up. Instead of giving him a ride into town, the prison authorities set him loose to navigate the brutal and extreme conditions of the desert on foot. It’s a miracle he survived. We used the image of the comet entering the Earth’s atmosphere as a metaphor to speak of this man’s experience.
A case study on the many layers contained within a song!
Enjoy :-)