Author: Pete
Location: Santiago, Chile
Wrote and recorded a song about the mountains and friendships in our time in Chile. Wrote and recorded the son and set it to video of an ice climbing trip. Check out the final product. The back story and such are below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebAMFLl13kw
Wrote this during/about an ice climbing trip with my friends Sergio and Casey. I knew it would be my last trip to Cerro Plomo, and it was a touch bittersweet. Preparing to leave Chile, and all the great friends who have become family, has been difficult indeed. It’s the way of the expat life. It’s one of the difficult parts in this path we’ve chosen. So I guess the song is lamenting the loss of the mountains when we move, but really, my mountains and my friends are one and the same.
So I wrote the song roughly on the trip and then fleshed it out at home. Sergio and Casey recorded it with me in the Blackbox Theater Studio at the International School Nido de Aguilas, where we work, with copious help from the Fine Arts Academy tech director, Juan E Vidal. He also mixed the music for us. We didn’t give him much to work with. It was the end of the year and everyone was scattered.
Neither Sergio nor Casey had seen or heard the song, and they blindly recorded four takes with me. Thanks for the musicianship, friendship, and adventurous spirit fellas.
Set it to video of the three of us ice climbing on Cerro Plomo, but the song is really about the way exploration of the mountains makes connections.
Plomo Icefalls Song
[VERSE]East through the foothills and up through the bends,
Packed in the Pik-Up, let’s go my friend,
Climb on… climb on….
Trade in the weight of our worries all week,
For these packs and these paths, it’s off to the peaks,
Climb on… climb on….
With our sunburned lips and our frost-nipped toes,
Got a flask full of coffee and a tent in the snow,
Climb on… Climb on….
Up and chasing shadows well before dawn,
Catchin’ up with ourselves we gotta slow things down,
Climb on… Climb on….
[BRIDGE]
Down in the city smog we lose our way,
So we’ll climb until we can see again,
We’re no mountain men with heroes’ goals,
We’re pilgrims out to save our souls,
[VERSE]
Sunrise breaks we’ve been climbing for hours,
Boots baptized in the spindrift showers,
Climb on… Climb on….
Beautiful life that you and I live,
18,000 feet of perspective,
Climb on… Climb on….
[BRIDGE]
The cold and snow we ain’t here to find,
We climb to seek what’s deep inside,
Though we’ll find no air on this rocky crest,
We breathe in life with every breath.
Audio:
Chords:
Verse: C Am F G
Bridge: Am C Am F G