Ananga’s Notes On Morning Light

When I heard Morning Light for the first time it was as we recorded it. And there I was pulled two ways, technician and listener both. 

I felt greatly inspired and excited by this particular HypnoDream and had a sense from very early on that it would be a real highlight of the album.

I recorded it with Pia, waiting until she returned from her tour of America to come and add some magical vocals for us – I had an idea of what I wanted for this and knew she was just the girl for the job. So I left this track alone entirely and played her the recording of the script only. She immediately declared it to be very similar to the words of a devotional Indian song by the 19^th century revered scholar and poet Srila Bhativinoda Thakura and so we went and found the Sanskrit verses of the song and began to recorded them around Silvia’s voice.

Initially we selected a key for Pia to sing in so that I could add the musical accompaniments later. But when the vocal recordings were completed and I came to add the background music some time later they were in a different key! In truth they were not quite in any key – Pia had slipped into her amazing in-between key that she usually sings in when unaccompanied. That was fine by me – she had sung the most amazing harmonies and I felt that the best thing for the opening stages of this track was that there should be no music at all – just Silvia speaking and Pia singing.

Later I added an introductory section with flutes and a conch shell being blown as is traditional in heralding the morning hours in temples around the world.

The Sanskrit devotional song Pia is singing is called Udilo Aruna and comes from a collection of songs titled Gitavali it is prescribed as a song to be sung at dawn J

It tells the story of crowds of devotees awakening with the sun as it rises in the East and running through the countryside, towns and villages playing mrdungas (hand drums as used on the track) with cymbals chiming in time, dancing and wearing jingling footbells.

Chanting the names Mukhunda and Madhava they would announce “With every rising and setting of the sun a day passes and is lost!” “Wake up and remember the Lord of your heart!”

Credits for other backing vocals go to my nephews Kavi (aged 9) and Radha (6) who are singing the call and response chorus.

They words they are singing are “jiv jago” which translates as “Wake up, sleeping souls!”

Instruments used: traditional conch shell, djembe (African hand drum), mrdunga (clay Indian drum that is mentioned in the original Sanskrit poetry), storyteller (Native American flute).

Silvia’s Notes On Morning Light

I’m not sure if I was delighted or appalled when I heard that in essence, I had once again managed to write something that someone else had written a few hundred years ago – quantum plagiarism at work, yet again!

Yet it is an amazing thing that there is a Sanscrit song which more or less does the same story I describe in Morning Light and I assure all future historians most profoundly that not only do I not speak Sanscrit, but that I have absolutely no connection with any Indian heritage poetry or music of any kind, religious or otherwise!

The fact is that Morning light is as close to unconsciously channelling as I ever get; I don’t even remember writing it but woke up when it was completed, and I still don’t remember it as one of mine – it is new each time I hear this.

I was really surprised at the near Shakespearean phrasing I’m using there –

Don’t mourn the passing of the night,

eternal it was, and it will be

again and nightwind gently leaves

the stage, not in retreat

but in respectful deference

bowing low, arms spread awide

as from the hills, the distant hills

dawn’s own sweet lady stirs and beckons,

sleepy still she is, her touch is light and intermittent

and you smell forests on her breath

the silent mists she swirls

they dance for her and reach up high

and raised by her, they smile and greet

the sky above now softly shading

into more than misty grey.

It really is amazing what comes out when you just let go and trust yourself to tell it, best you can!

But Morning Light had even more surprises for me, personally.

When I was in the studio, delivering the scripts, I was doing very well; good diction and good concentration, recording one after the other; all was going very smoothly.

Until I hit the following lines in Morning Light:

New day

born for the first time

never did it rise before

and never will it be again.

I just burst out into tears and couldn’t read the lines; tried it once, twice, three times, each time with a long break of walking around and composing myself (or trying to!) in between.

In the end, I gave up and had to do some energy therapy on myself; it was then it came to my awareness of how I had – well, let’s come right out and say it, WASTED all these precious dawns, all these precious days, entirely neglectful and unheedful of their worth and value – all these days which now, will never rise again.

I don’t know how old you are but it is my guess, the older you are, the harder this would hit you, but this thinking is truly only an old construct regret – but yes, at the time these “old construct regrets” are quite powerful and overwhelming as I demonstrated to the sound crew on the day most readily! Five minutes spent truly alive and aware are worth 105 years spent as a construct, and so this really is not a matter of “how much time is left” at all, once you can get over the initial shock of it.

What I think Morning Light is about is to familiarise ourselves with the coming dawn of the totality, our own rebirth into our true selves; true selves which KNOW that these days will never come again and they won’t waste them, but live each one with volition and with celebration.

I think Morning Light is a re-assurance of how the old will transition into the new and that this transition need not be feared or kept at bay; that all our fears of what it might be or how regretful we will be of what we were (and hence, best not ever find out, yeah!) will simply dissolve when the sun rises, and that indeed, we will dance in the morning light, the dawn of our real life, entirely joyous and without the slightest trace of regret, the slightest taint of resentment or repercussion.