| Grand canyon sadly never got an official studio version as we played this from Torrod all the way through the end of Archivon. It's one of our oldest songs. It was written with the Torrod trio of myself, Jeff and Andy James (Todd's brother). We drove out to California in the spring of 1988 and arrived at the Grand Canyon around 3:00 am. It was pitch black as Andy and myself were looking for the damn thing. We stepped around a bush and almost fell in. All you could see was this black hole silhouette and it appeared the earth was being swallowed. Andy and I were breathless, we actually were so stunned we couldn't breath and we ran away to find Jeff and tried to spit out how stunned we were. Anyway, when we arrived in Los Angeles we decided to write a song about it where each one of us contributes his thougts of the experience. After all these years I can't recall which verses any of us wrote but it was an appropriately expressed collaboration. We also fleshed out the music at that time as well. Jeff also plays the keyboard part at the end which was originally the intro to the song. Jeff may have moved it to the end to give us the proper key for the harmony into in The Other Life which we didn't use this show. I did alot on this song. I sang backing vocals, played the clean guitar break then had to quickly hit about about 3 switches to play the guitar solo. Once the verse starts in this version I'm actually a step flat in my guitar key as I'm singing with Jeff but I quickly correct myself. Todd and I would play the main verse riff then trade off guitar licks which probably isn't too audible in this recording. |
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Andy James, Tom Mody and I wrote this ditty due to what we experienced while visiting the Grand Canyon. We were awe struck. Breathless. Speechless. Tom remembers it differently than I, so I will tell my version. We were passing through Arizona in our Chrysler Cordoba at around three in the morning and were a bit confused at where we were. I believe Andy was driving at the time and he pulled into a small area so we could figure out where we were and which direction we needed to head. While looking at an atlas, a police cruiser pulled in behind us and the lights came on. Soon thereafter a police woman approached the vehicle and asked what we were doing. I think we had her unnerved with our car full of long haired people and stuff and our New York plates. She went through a host of questions and asked us to get out of the car one at a time and give identification. As it turns out, she ran all of our licenses and discovered that the girl with us that owned the car had a suspended license. But something good came out of this. The police woman, finally at ease with the fact that we were just tourists passing through, asked us if we had ever seen the Grand Canyon. When we told her no, she explained that it would be a shame for us being so close to not take the opportunity and drive up to see it. She gave us directions and we seized opportunity. It was the beginning of April, dark and the closer we would get to this natural wonder, the thinner and colder the air. I'm not sure but I think a couple of us became ill due to the mixture of cold and thin air. It definitely had an effect on our vessel. The higher the altitude, the more that car ran like a piece of sh*t. Nothing would prepare us for what we were about to see. I don't recall Tom and AJ pulling me in to see the sight. I remember darkness and seeing a flicker of light which I would soon discover to be a large campfire in the bottom of the canyon. These events inspired me so, that I took this in and wrote what is now the segue to the song. The funny thing was that we had no idea what we were about to see as the sun rose and we were literally standing at the edge of this gigantic hole in the earth. There was no railing. What a beautiful and eerie sight. Everyone should experience this once in their lifetime. When we were settled in to our destination in Los Angeles we all sat down and wrote a piece to our experience. Like Tom, I don't recall who wrote what. But it adds an element of mystery.
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