So Far From My Home (ONE-STOP) (has stems)

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Credits

Daniel McBrearty : vocals, guitar, keys, tenor sax and horns, arrangement, recording and production
Charles "Chidi" Anya : bass guitar
Tom Lambrecht : drums
Joes Brands (Sputnik Studios, Antwerp): recording
Charly De Pessemier (Flight Case Music, Brussels): mastering

I wrote this song in the 1990s, while visiting my father in the place where I grew up, West Wales. It's a song about feeling rootless, as if you don't really belong anywhere. One hot summer night, I drove to Newgale Beach to walk and run barefoot on the sand. I felt amazingly free. I looked up (the night skies are incredibly clear there), and thought about the satellites beaming their messages into TV here on earth, and of the whole damn planet, every rock and grain of sand, formed of little vibrating atoms, me a part of it. When I got back I picked up the guitar and played that opening riff, then wrote the words that been in my head.

The original recording was part of a live session with drums and acoustic bass, at Sputnik Studio in Antwerp. I built the arrangement up in my home studio, adding horns, BVs and other parts. There is also a more reggae-tinged saxophone instrumental in the works.

Lyrics

In the age of the atomic clock
I hear the slave atom whisper and rock
Her heart beats deep in the rock
In readiness
Far above me the satellite
Hits the world through the word box of light
Far away from the sweet morning light
In this wilderness

But I wish that I did not feel
So Far From My Home
I wish that I did not feel
So Far From My Home
Far From Home

I’m gonna reach down deep in the rock
Find my way through the rupture, the shock
He heart beats deep in the rock
In tenderness
I’m gonna cry out like a prisoner in the dock
I’m gonna break that chain and the lock
Gonna end that deep mental block
In readiness

But I wish that I did not feel
So Far From My Home
I wish that I did not feel
So Far From My Home
Far From Home

I’m gonna hold my head to the heights
I’m gonna be like a beacon of light
I’m gonna let my talent shine bright
In this wilderness

But I wish that I did not feel
So Far From My Home
I wish that I did not feel
So Far From My Home
Far From Home