About
Key of C, tempo 75
1976
This is one of the first songs I ever wrote as a teenager, and I played it for years. The lyrics were written by my father, Thomas Joseph Ray, and the minor chord fingerpicking was stolen shamelessly from an early Zeppelin song (“Babe I’m Gonna’ Leave You”). When I mixed and recorded this version in 2022, I moved away from the acoustic simplicity of the original, and tried to create the loudest wall of sound I could, along with some weird (to me at least) Oriental instruments to add an air of mystery to it. The final mix is indeed something different, but I think it fits the song. My recommendation is to turn this up LOUD when you listen to it, because it’s not about subtlety.
I like the lyrics and how they tell the story of a fly being stalked by a spider from the perspective of the fly, a novel literary device. The line
O graceful monarch, do hark my plea,
I beg of you to set me free
is about as perfect as poetry gets. I sometimes wonder if Dad wrote other poems – this is the only one I’m aware of…