I hope you feel the majestic force of the song
and be ready for a dragon flight to Neverland in a never ending story.

Some deep analyses how I came to this song;

Again  I wrote it in open D tuning on my dobro. I had some fancy chords going and a dark intro, I was going to write a swamp delta blues, but with some typical chords the atmosphere of the song changed - the more when I introduced a bridge with descending bass notes in Bm… so it all got wierd. 

I tuned my Flying V Epihpone ’58 Korina to open D also and recorded two heavy tracks with overdrive in which I added some delay and reverb to one guitar creating a huge wall of sound in the mix.  So you got 4 guitars just for the basic chord progression. 

I used the kill switch on the Epiphone to do some tremelo effects at the end of the song.

Listening to the raw track gave me a vision of a knight riding a horse to a Fortress ,  the lyrics became more evident  so I could write a storyline to it about a knight going to rescue his lady . King Arthur, Lancelot and lady Guinevere.

As you see there are elements of medieval scorcery , Vikings, Swords, Magic and some Fairytales in the writing,but also mystical Tarot cards reading,  the Sword of Nine e.g. I think this is a reference to myself

Timelords & nebulas refer to Doctor Who  a British TV series I watched when I was a kid. There is a new timelord now the 12 th Doctor!  and he plays guitar. how cool. So I had to use the trailers and made my own storyline from these. I copied a picture I found in the “Hell bent for” trailer to open the scene with. 

Bridge of Sighs is a song from Robin Trower,  for the first verse of Fortress I was influenced by Neil Young’s Powderfinger.  when I was 22  and was a student I had this track in my carstereo and listend to it a lot. Listen to the lyrics in the first verse “ and he just turned 22 and didn’t know what to do” creepy isn’t it?

Why I choose for Dr. Who instead of King Arthur? well because of storyline and because of the mind expanding travels, crossing the boundaries between love, fiction and fantasies, space and time.

A long time friend mentioned in a song the word fortess, so I had the title.

gear: Flying V Epiphone ’58 Korina, Dean Chrome G dobro, Ibanez the performer bass, TC electronic Nova Delay ND-1, Boss distortion DS-1, Superlux CM H-84 mic.  Dunlop 213 glass slide.

Bridge of Sighs

Album van john schuur

Fortress

If you like the ZZ Top style shuffle check this song of mine. All instruments & lyrics by me. I used my Epiphone '58 Korina Flying V for all the guitar tracks. I love the wild sound it produces. 

Fortress

John Schuur

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