DAY 9: SANTIAGO
“We are the memory of the road we're on…”
STORY
I lived for a short time in a Mixtecan village in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, Mexico…
I’d wake up in the morning to the smell of fresh mangoes being peeled, & coffee beans roasting over an iron brazier. I’d take walks through the maize fields with the village men. Somewhere along the way, the song ‘Santiago’ was born.
I started imagining a story in which a couple of Americans get caught up in a revolution, on New Year’s Day, in some unnamed Latin American country. Hitching a ride with a local farmer, they flee the city amidst the riots & end up in a little village in the jungle, like the one I lived in. That night, they celebrate the arrival of the new year. Meanwhile, the villagers fear that the army will show up in the morning to threaten the locals & question them about their involvement in the uprising.
You can hear the village in this recording: underneath the song itself I’ve added the sounds of a tianguis - an open-air market - complete with barking dogs & the haggling of buyers & sellers. I asked Seattle friends to add traditional Latin instruments to the mix: charango, guitarron, accordion. At the end of the song, night falls, so I added a chorus of crickets….which continue into the next song, ‘Lullaby’.
LISTEN & DOWNLOAD
If you’re going for quality, you’ll want to download the Wav file from Google Drive. If you just want a standard Mp3, you can download that straight from my Soundcloud for free.
LYRICS
The pilot heard the bulletin
he panicked and flew off again
Stranding three Americans
Stranded and in disarray
An hour short of New Year's Day
there came shouts and smoke from far away
They wandered to the marketplace
in search of food or friendly face
Some comfort in this city far from home
the stalls were closed the streets were bare
But they met a drunken padre there
who said the rebels held Cathedral Square
Yeah hey...
Terrified they begged a ride
to safety down the mountainside
Crowded in and fled the riots
the city's roar soon fell away
The cluck of startled hens beneath the hay
The grind of gears the sway of stars
They thanked him as the night rolled past
The campesino laughed
and with his finger drew a circle on the seat
"It's like sitting round a fire
you can't see the faces of the people sitting on the farthest side
you can only feel the heat"
Yeah hey...
At road's end the moon a sliver
slipped into a quiet river
Cattle lowed and huddled on the shore
The village slept the indígenas
dreaming off the caña
Rose and marigold, naranja and the haze of copal
"I have two souls one which wanders
You're standing on the other one
The rain that fell upon my father is the river of my sons
and sure as this new day will dawn
when the military comes
tell them this is our home, the road we're ever on"
We are the memory of the road we're on
and just as we have the right to our beliefs
the road can name us pilgrims
but it cannot name the path we'll keep
A new year a new year
new cup to catch the same tears
Pale in the January sun
the road gathers itself and then gone
Like this moment just the past on its way to passing on
Yeah hey...
THE CATHEDRAL
Shortly after I lived there, the Zapatista uprising happened in the Chiapan capital city of San Cristobal de las Casas. There’s an iconic photo from the front page of the NY Times of a Zapatista, with a bandanna over his face, holding a rifle over his head while standing on the steps of the city’s famous cathedral.
Inside the cathedral, in one of the stations of the cross, I remember seeing a statue of Jesus being led to his death by Roman centurions…only this Jesus was painted to look like an indigenous Mexican, and the soldiers like Spanish conquistadores. For me it was a powerful visual symbol of the strained centuries-old relationship between native Americans & the people of Spanish descent who conquered, and still run, most Latin American countries - the sort of strained relations that can lead to uprisings like the one in my song ‘Santiago’.
