Wayfaring...on the age-old Camino de Santiago, over the French Pyrenees and across the mountains and plains of Spain to the very ends of the earth itself......on the road to Santiago.
Where wonders are experienced, insights are gained and a wanderer's heart finds solace and loss. The road is long and hard and sometimes even treacherous.
The journey begins with a sacred call. A call from above, heard amidst the frenzied urban riffs of Heaven Calling, through the ever-encroaching tidal wave of global rule, fading cultures and life signs measured by a click or two. There's a full sense here of the urgency of responding to the call, and so our traveller embarks, without further ado,...on the road to Santiago.
When next we come across him he is on his way with a spring in his step, accompanied by a Girl from Monreal. Her presence seems to ease the wanderer's burden of long days spent alone on the road, re-routing his journey away from the soul towards a soul-mate. But just how long will she stay by his side? How off-course will this diversion take him? The road is long and life passes by and by...Soon enough, the road itself fills our traveller's mind. A country ease creeps into his song and step. The call has been heeded and his mind now turns to the many many miles ahead. As autumn fades and winter grips his soul, the wanderer asks - if not the end of the road, what might there be Around the Bend,...on The road to Santiago?Bounding along to a spirited Knoppfler-esque walker's anthem, we find our pilgrim scurrying along red Rioja soil, his goal firmly planted in his and our minds. The journey has its mecca, James the Greater's tomb, and we follow the wayfarer's purposeful progress through fragrant forests of blooming chestnut, oak and eucalypt - forests as varied as life's fickle fates.
Before he knows it, the ebbs and flows of time and tide have overtaken the walker's life. Storms are brewing just over the horizon and the wayfarer finds - like his seafaring mates - that the sailing is never smooth boys. Trouble looms with Magdeline by the Sea, for every port brings its exotic enticements and every traveller, at some time in his life, has given in to a wanderlust.
One more romantic interlude - a Nordic detour with You Scandinavian Girl - before he moves on to a riskier wayside flirtation, this time of the Faustian kind. With The Devil in Red, Satan crosses our pilgrim's path, as happened so often to wandering Mississippi Delta bluesmen of old. With more than a passing nod to the likes of Wall of Voodoo, we enter a world peopled by scoundrels and liars and the journey to the holy of holies in Santiago begins to take a sinister turn - a headlong rush into the jaws of judgement.
Beware, ...