A Model Psychosis
Track 9. Velada
October, 1962. Back with our hero, now in "Mazatec Country" with Anita, Gordon Wasson and Marina Sabina.
I can't take credit for much of this song. I adapted the lyric from a few different translations, the melody is straight from the Smithsonian field recordings. So, I harmonized it. This is the only track I play piano on, with the exception of the overdubbed interlude melody on The Tradition. It's also the very first piece that I started working on for the album, and Jeff Miller's guitar work was the first track recorded.
R. Gordon Wasson's story could be a whole record by itself. He was the vice-president of J.P. Morgan, and became an extremely accomplished amateur mycologist -- thanks to his wife, Valentina. Once again, behind every great man is a great woman. In any case, Gordon is a much more important character in this story than I had time or space to relate. As for Albert, note the Ranz des Vaches motif. The spirit of Maria Sabina and "the little people", I believe, speaks for itself. In volumes.
I hope you can feel something of what it might have been like to be there when you listen to this song, and I apologize for stepping on what might have otherwise been a pretty song by adding some "musical" elements to accomplish this.
lyric
I am a saint woman, says I'm a drum a drum woman, says I'm a woman born fallen into the other world That is your Book That is your Book Book of clarity, says I'm a woman of the breeze I am a woman who looks in into the in-sides of things woman who shouts, who resounds a woman torn out of the ground, says I'm a woman wise in medicine, says I'm a woman of heaven woman who thunders woman who sounds, says Woman of the shooting stars of a sacred, enchanted place Because I can swim in the immense And I come going from place to place from the origin Because I come searching beneath the water from the opposite shore I am the woman who can be torn
links
- LSD: My Problem Child, Chapter 6
- Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico - Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
- R. Gordon Wasson Archives - Harvard University Herbaria
