The Cremation of Sam McGee-By Robert Service
Poem to Music on a bitter winters morning.
Hello my friends,
Wow, what a time to be alive. While we wake up amidst changing tides in our country, my heart feels all sorts of things right now. I think I will let my Love for artists and creation lead my path today instead of the anger and bitterness that is bubbling beneath. It’s ok to feel those feelings, but today I’ll look for the light.
So after my last stack, I felt inspired to head to the borrowed tape machine that my pal Joel is storing at my place to see what I could conjur up. I definitely didn’t have a 7 minute version of a Robert Service poem set to music on the cards but alas, it revealed it self to me. The guitar is in open D and this is all love off the floor, it took me about three tries and the version you hear here just sort of spilled out in a rolling boil. Something else took hold and I let go and held on. There is a beautiful haunting in this version and a few people have mentioned I gave Sam a character that they had never heard in the poem before. The tape itself also plays another character as well.
This would best be served listening in headphones with your eyes closed.
It’s a long one so no hard feelings if you don’t take the journey, but it might just be what you need right now.
Hold and let go.
Peace to you today.
The Cremation of Sam McGee By Robert Service.
This is wonderful, Leeroy. I had not heard of Robert Service before your mention of him last week but I’ve now read a brief biography and it was so good to hear some of his verse presented in this way. Thank you so much, both for sharing and for bringing him to my attention.
That was a lovely way to experience that poem. Thank you so much.