#23: India

I wrote the music for this song on a kid's guitar that I bought in Delhi. James and I were traveling through India together, in December of 2009 and writing music as we went. It was a hell of an adventure and this song, more than any photograph, brings back all the memories of that incredible trip. 

If you're not drawing in 3000 years how can you live well? How can you love well? If you're not living your life hand to mouth, India's lovely. And the colours they shine through. Climbing walls and killing kids, the monkeys and the invalids and the warm black air that turns colours dark. The black dirt on my shoes can't stain, they're removed and money still threatens to kill the mood; and the colours, the colours they shine through.

You see pain and struggle - they call it life and hustle.
In the streets, in this heat.
The greatest stories told - this is where they unfold.
Traveling these roads from the new to the old.
Alleyways of the lost, the streets of allure,
The burnings in the gats, to the silver of Jaipur.
In and out of traffic and in and out of life,
Kites in the sky, escaping this life.
You say philosophy, they call it prophesy.
You talk ideas but we're right here in reality.
The nightmares of the fights in Lahore,
Divided country - religious war.
It's caught in my mind, replaying all the time,
If this is their life, how easy is mine?
Forget the city stress, the million dollar view,
Life is short so let the colours shine through.