Sometimes I feel like one of cupid’s darts and it’s a wondrous sensation.
There is a song in “It’s Time To Leave This World Behind” by de portables whose lyrics and whose music is inspired by a song by Peter Jefferies.
Unless you speak Dutch and you sleep with a copy of “The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World” under your pillow, the reference is not immediate.
For years every morning I have been painting covers for the records that I publish with my label, I find the inspiration in the lyrics of the songs.
For “Regenbomen” and “It’s Time To Leave This World Behind” the band sent me an English version of the song. It is the story of two children in a strand who saw a man talking to a little white parakeet. They buy a ticket for the bird. That very same man was already there a few years before, on an unknown beach trying to make his bird go home.
I’ve known Wio for a lifetime and one of my main activities over the years has been to motivate him to give a follow up to his self-titled 2001 album, taking a break from de portables and his many projects.
On “The Breakthrough Album” there is a cover of “On An Unknown Beach”.
I offered myself to send a copy of the record to Peter Jefferies, and I also added a copy of “It’s Time To Leave This World Behind” convinced that Peter should listen to that record too. I still remember the covers with exactness of details.
And so with the same trepidation with which one expects the response to a love letter, I awaited Peter’s response.
The two records and the covers made their way to New Zealand.
But could I really consider my task completed? Was I really done? What Would a dart do in these cases? Can a dart from Belgium arrive in New Zealand and come back?
One day Peter published a photo and I recognized my paintings.
Soon everything would have happened, a pandemic, Italy in lockdown and I found myself almost by chance working on a quarantine-themed compilation to make the darkest days seem mild.
One day I took courage and asked Peter if he wanted to submit a song.
Peter quickly became a point of reference, a daily presence in my life. We have been writing each other for weeks.
There was always a message by Peter in the morning. And this made me really happy.
Peter sent me three songs, a piece by Axos, Ghostwriter and … a live recorded version of “On An Unknown Beach”.
One afternoon I was behind the wheel of my car and as always happens when I am alone, I let myself be carried away by the music.
I began to fantasize. Spring last year was fantastic, nature for the forced interruption of human activities seemed to have taken back many of the spaces that had been stolen from her.
In the cd player I had loaded an advanced copy of the compilation to which I had added the pieces that Peter had sent me over the course of the night, his day which was his night.
Peter lives in one of the furthest corner of the world from me.
On the cd also “A Desolate Scene” by Wio.
Chills.
I thought that perhaps the dart from cupid’s bow had not yet completed its trajectory.
Wio, who like me lives on the old continent, was certainly awake.
“Wio, what would you say if I ask Peter Jefferies to collaborate at a song with you?”
This ep was born like this, from a dart shot by a cupid, a dart that traveled across the old continent and arrived in the brand new continent to come back.
The songs were written by Peter and Wio, mixed by Peter and Victoria Singh, mastered by Chris Foreman. All the instruments, with the exception of the guitar which is by Wio, are by Peter.
The sound that comes near the end of the second verse of “Red Clover” is a fire siren, a warning signal that Peter recorded at 7.30pm on a Monday night in Okato, New Zealand.
If the beginning is the end, the end is the beginning, what is the beginning of the end?
Preorder your copy now.
