Chris
Chameleon and Somerfaan - Morning is Broken (3.7MB)
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Chris Chameleon's note about this song:
"The music
for this track was made 2 years ago. At Nel, a.k.a. Somerfaan,with the help
of Arnaud van Vliet, ex Blue Chameleon, put together a rather exceptional collection
of songs and released them on an instrumental album.
Each song called for vocals, at least, that's what I thought as I listened to
the album. Unbeknownst to me, At had already approached several leading South
African artists to try their hands... eh, vocal chords at it! He got some feedback,
but was never really satisfied. And he never approached me!"
"I met
him in the street in JHB one day and told him that I thought the album was great,
but that it needed vocals to make it better (funny thing is, I get guitarists
telling me that all the time!). he said that he thought of asking me but didn't
know if I would be into it, and then gave me the go ahead.
I wrote the lyrics and composed the vocals in 4 hours of what I can at best
describe as a 'sielsuitmergelende meeting met die muses'. It was as if the words
were forged in my heart, then wrung from my head and then sweat from my fingertips.
When I was done, at about 3am, I was quivering as a reed, very restless. I brought
him the track the very next day, much to his surprise. He listened to it, he
loved it. His smile was so wide that I feared it may go right around his head
and behead him!"
"Now, the
interesting part is this:
in the same week I had a meeting with my designer in Durban. We discussed the
image I wanted to portray this year. She made the clothes a week later, and
one of the shirts was made in such a way that it seemed to be cut, like a wound
of some sorts, she used a lot of manga reference.
A month later I was attacked in my bed whilst sleeping. A very nasty little
incident that almost cost me my life. I went to hospital, got my 50 stitches,
and went home to recover.
4 days after the incident, I was due to record the track in studio. Although
I wasn't feeling very strong, it was a matter of principal to me to not let
this sort of evil affect my life, prevent me from doing my thing. And there,
in the studio, half naked, because my wounds were too tender to wear clothes
yet, I recorded the track.
And as I did so, it occurred to me how prophetic the lyrics, and the anxiety
I experienced as I wrote them were! It was as if they were pre-emptively encouraging
me to deal with what was to happen. This has earned the track a very special
place in my heart.
And only a few days later my outfit arrived in the post and... the wounds on
the shirt, in most places, resembled the wounds I was dealt in the attack! Freaky,
to say the least."
"There are moments like these, when art and life become so intertwined, that they seem to merge, and let us bleed our paintings, breathe our songs, sweat our words, and at such times it seems as if things are, after all, one."