Not a Cloud in the Sky
The Synchronicity Wavelength
Genre:
Ambient Psychedelic Rock
Instruments Used:
Vocals
Electric Guitar (Rhythm and Lead)
Djembe
Tibetan Bell
Tibetan Singing Bowl
Lyrics:
[A Tibetan Singing Bowl, Tibetan Bell, and a Djembe introduce this song as a sorrowful Electric Guitar calls out into the void]
Looking through the sky,
Passing no clouds.
Water vapor on the rise,
In the oceans down South.
Well there’s rainbows in my eyes
And I’m laughing out loud.
The trees are so alive
And so to them I bow.
Not a cloud in the sky with the Sun beaming down,
Beautiful in its simplicity all around.
Not a cloud in the sky with the Sun beaming down,
Beautiful in its simplicity all around.
[Reversed audio of Electric Guitars transitions the song back into the instrumentation found at the introduction of the piece, giving the composition a dove-tailed, speaking effect (Cause and Effect)]
Analysis:
A djembe rumbles and gives the music a more naturalistic sound, bringing the audience’s focus back in after the ambient effect of the previous song. The song is once again composed of mostly major and suspended 4th chords, achieving a sense of floating or gliding. This windy quality is betrayed by the introduction of the djembe and the unsettling backwards guitars at the end of the song. This is the moment of “glory” found within Campbell’s hero cycle. The major chords represent this undescribed feat while the suspended chords represent the inability to stop following the cycle of the story of our lives (or in this case, my own life).
The construction of the song places two disparate sections of similar quality before and after the main vocal section sandwiched in the middle. The first section is open, free, and suggestive of meditation songs akin to the previous track. In contrast, the final portion of the song replaces the Tibetan bell and relative emptiness of the song with an overwhelming tumult of reversed electric guitar, shifting the feeling of the song to be more closed, caged, and unearthly. It is clear that the cycle is being turned again, the hero must return eternally in an unnatural rembrance of both the past, present, and future.
Lyrically, I recount a mental trip to the sky while lying on the ground watching the world go by. There is a glorification and worship of the simple subjects around us within the piece. Trees, a lack of clouds, rainbows, and sunlight are all mentioned with reverence. This idea is central to the end of a journey; I am displaying the “talisman” that was retrieved through the trials involved in the quest. This knowledge and compassion for subjects (and the lack of subjects) that are oft not enjoyed by modern humans displays that the “talisman” is a gift from beyond, from another place. I am at peace at what seems to be the end; however, the next song, “Far Out”, is significantly different in style and begins with a collection of people (all actually me) muttering and talking about beginning a song, which they swiftly jump into.
The gift is refused. The compassion and calm are wiped away as the cycle begins again…