I don’t get to play this tune too often. In fact, I think I may have played it live once and that was last year on Station 234 with musical guest, harpist, Elisa Thorn.
Elisa holds the centre of 30 + 1 Kings. My original guitar part from the demo (above) was transcribed for Elisa by Martin Reisle, who beautifully arranged the choir and strings for the song.
I have cleaner demos, but this is the first one I sent to Martin. Everything was starting to move for the album. I didn’t want to hold up arrangements so I didn’t dawdle on the demo.
My studio was in my mom’s garage at the time. You can hear water running through the pipes above me as someone (presumably my mom) has flushed the toilet. When Martin heard the demo he thought it was wind. He also thought it was intentional. And poetic. So he took that sound and transcribed it for the strings. Check out the score in the demo player above – he labelled it “Desert Wind.”
Brilliant.
Listen to the album version of 30 and 1 Kings…
Love,
David
30 + 1 Kings (iPhone Demo)