AMERICA

Dvorák

This song was revived 13 years later for the album Let Go.

Finale

This song was revived 13 years later for the album Let Go.

America

Revived from Volume 2. Played on 12-string.

Dalhart, Texas, 1967

The first incarnation of The Grand Finale (issued on John Fahey Visits Washington DC (1979). According to Fahey, it’s partly his interpretation of Jess Morris' Goodbye Old Paint. Scholars have also detected elements of the African-American composer Louis Gottschalk’s work The Banjo.

Knoxville Blues

JF: This is an imitation of (pioneer country guitarist) Sam McGee, played at about half speed. Open D major tuning.

Mark 1:15

JF, 1972: “Out of all the songs I ever wrote, I consider only two of them ‘epic’ or ‘classic’ or in the ‘great’ category and they are both on this record. It’s taken me more than five years to complete these. Most of the melodic ideas existed a long time ago, i.e. the primary ‘lyric’ melody in Mark 1:15 is the same as When the Springtime Comes Again…”

Mark 1:15, for the curious, reads: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel.” This verse is considered by theologians to be the irreducible essence of the preaching of Jesus of Nazareth."

Pathetic discographical note: edited by two minutes for the CD reissue. That kind of thing always provokes fury among the more militant Fahey fans.

Voice of the Turtle

JF: “Based on Hymn # 576, Ora Labora in the Episcopal Hymnal’.

One phrase copped, we believe, from Robbie Basho’s Bardo Blues, which was released on The Seal of the Blue Lotus in 1965. This is anomalous though, being the first detected occasion of Fahey borrowing from a contemporary.

The Waltz That Carried Us Away And Then A Mosquito Came And Ate Up My Sweetheart

Takes the first part of its title from Joseph Falcon, the early Cajun star, and the second part from the Segura Brothers. The legendary, reclusive Fahey expert Jürgen Kleine suggests the main melodic theme is borrowed from John Cage’s Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano.