Sneak Preview - Dusk At Devil's Tower

Each Monday until our second full-length album Come For the Peaks, Stay For the Valleys is released on December 2nd, I've been posting a song off the record on our myspace page for you to preview and enjoy and talking a little bit about each song on this here blog. This is the final song I'll be posting. Yep, only nine songs on the album, but come on, one of them is almost nine minutes long.

Week nine: Dusk At Devil's Tower

For me, this song is the centerpiece of the album. It ties together all of the other themes and is also stylistically towards the middle. It was written during a time when I was finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with all the crap that 2007 had thrown at me (the death of my father, the end of a relationship). The chorus, "Your hand, my dear / I'll take you there / Just south of where I was last year" was an invitation for my now-ex to see exactly what I had been through as I dealt with my grief and she was feeling so cut out of my life.

The inspiration for the title and imagery comes from Devils Tower in Wyoming. The picture of a little Jamie is from a road trip I had taken with my dad visiting landmarks around Northern Wyoming and South Dakota. I learned the legend of Devils Tower (the name of the monument doesn't contain the apostrophe) on that trip and, despite my horrible memory, it's always stuck with me. The most popular legend is something about seven Native American sisters being lifted in to the heavens (into the constellation named after the Greek Pleiades) to escape being chased by a bear and as the rock lifted out the ground, the bear's claw marks were left on the stone. The next time I saw the monument was in May of 2007 at dusk as I was driving from Minnesota back to Seattle after my dad's funeral.

However, this song tends to be more cathartic than sad when we play it, probably because I feel it with kind of a smug "show me what you're made of" sentiment and that I'll always fight for myself.

An interesting thing about recording this song was the guitar solo overdub. Mark, our engineer, was really trying to get me to use this vintage Fender Champ amp that Avast had. I finally broke down and used it on this song and "Quid Pro Quo" to fatten up some of the solos. But we discovered as we were recording it that one of the tubes was loose, so Mark had to hit "record" in the control room, then run out into the studio and hold the tube (which get very, very hot) in place with his sweater over his hand.

Next week I'll be putting up a few mp3s from the record to download for free on MySpace and our website. Check back!

Dusk at Devil’s Tower

My right foot pushes on the grey miles
I can fake some blue smiles
If you can’t be here
If you can’t be here, at least be absolute

Reigns in hand
A settled saddle
This is the last time (I think you know)
His feet touch the ground

I thought I’d seen it all
Scorpion sits
Sharks await
panoramic pull is breaking my neck

Your hand, my dear
I’ll take you there
Just south of where I was last year
Your hand, my dear
If you insist, we’re there
Where I was last year

Seven sisters out in the brush
Out on their own, out of the hush
Monolith, igneous sandstone
A bear scare, help!

Deliver me into the night
Save a spot for me up in the sky
It may be scrappy
but you best believe I’m going to fight

If you can’t be here at least be absolute

Your hand (my hand)

Downhill both ways, my dear