In 1988, I went backpacking around Guatemala on hiatus from teaching in Tokyo.  My partner of three years had just left me to join a new-age Rajneeshi spin-off cult in England. Rather bummed out, I was "hiding on the highway, forgetting" as the lyrics go, when I sat on the church steps in a remote village on the shore of Lake Panahachel. There I pulled out some pencils and notebooks I'd bought to distribute to the local kids.  The kids swarmed me and snatched what I was offering and more besides, like locusts on a lettuce head.  Silly me, I took it all in like it was the last testament on the essential nature of the human race.  Disgusted to the core, I held the revulsion in me for the next three years and finally vented it in this song in 1991 when I eventually came to reside in a private room with electricity.  I programmed an original beat on a cheesy drum machine for the base track and then layered on multi-tracked guitar and vocals on a cheap 4-track cassette recorder. My vocal is a fairly calm narration of the story while my guitar rips an angry counterpoint with the real emotion. It was a pretty big departure from my acoustic ballad style.

_____________________

In the electric land, under the big sky
We perform in the tiny theater of our lives
While the battle rages outside
In a certain place once a upon a time

Eyes of smiling fire and something else I cannot name
Have sent me down this darkened road falling on my broken wing
Run, watch me run
Where the winter slips into the spring

I was hiding on the highway
Forgetting
And on the church steps 
The children snatched my possessions

And the little song in my heart 
Died right there
Desert wind and a pink skyline
This is the road to a land most fine




Desert Wind

In June, 1989 I returned to the United States after spending most of 5 years traveling and working abroad. I took up residence in a remote trailer in the Summit Road area in Santa Cruz. Off the grid, I bought a gas generator for electricity and built an outhouse for a restroom.  I'd just seen first-hand the regimented ways of the overworked urban Japanese and the tradition bound Europeans. In the mountain solitude, I crafted a song about how free we are in the West, especially here in California. I like the psychedelic guitar riffs layered over the acoustic ballad. This was a super low tech recording that somehow held together.

Listen to the water flow
Here it's deep and I want to go
London, Tokyo, Katmandu
Watch the heavens come into view

Hear the song of the wild west
Hear its strong, silent promise
See the sunken eyes and time clock lives
There's more than one road to paradise

Days we sailed to land this shore
With song of earth, we ship the oar
It smells alive, breathe the air
Here is hope to heal despair

Hear the song of the wild west
Hear its strong, silent promise
See the sunken eyes and the time clock lives
There's more than one road to paradise


Ron Rhodes 4