God, Time and Causality

Note: we believe that God, Time and Causality was recorded in 1977

Revelation

From the sleeve notes: In Charley Patton’s 1929 recording, You’re Gonna Need Somebody When You Die, he quoted the biblical Book of Revelation. Here, Fahey musically quotes Patton in a terse mood piece with shimmering slides.

The Red Pony

From the sleeve notes: Formerly known as Wine and Roses. Possibly named after [John] Steinbeck’s minor novel. The sleevenote says: “Perhaps Van Gogh would’ve sounded like this, had he been given a guitar and not a palette. The piece is expressionistic and angry – Fahey’s guitar becomes a stringed pipe organ, bleating wrath and redemption.”

Lion

From the sleeve notes: “If you’re going to steal,” Fahey once said, “steal from obscure sources.” Walter Hawkins ranks high on any list of blues obscurities, though perhaps higher on a scale of originality. The Arkansas ragtime/blues guitarist, who made a handful of recordings in the late ‘20s, somehow absorbed elements of flamenco into his music, perhaps from a stint in Europe during World War I. His A Rag (Fahey’s point of departure here) was liberally spiced with ragtime flamenco! A tribute from one eccentric eclectic guitarist to another, Lion also features a stately Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and, along with some classical wistfulness, references to the music of Charley Patton and Skip James.

Medley: Interlude/The Portland Cement Factory/Requiem for Mississippi John Hurt

From the sleeve notes: C tuning has a wonderfully spacious sound. Fahey uses it for a blend of bugle calls, oriental scales, an hints of Train 4 in his requiem for the gentle John Hurt.

Interlude – This is parts of Melody McBad from Visits Washington DC. The IFC believes that this medley and Sandy on Earth date from 1977.

Medley: Snowflakes/Steamboat ‘Gwine Around The Bend/Death of the Clayton Peacock/How Green Was My Valley

Snowflakes – Not quite a new piece, having been extracted from the conclusion of Silent Night on The New Possibility (1968), plus the intro to Delta Blues (1978).

From the sleeve notes: Well, bottleneck in spirit, but Fahey actually plays Hawaiian style – a guitar with a raised nut set in the lap and fretted with a steel Dobro bar. Musically, he takes us on a slow boat to China that eventually meanders to the Mississippi on a hot summer’s day at the turn of the century. The darker passages evoke the sweltering Delta milieu of Charley Patton; with typical Fahey irony, Death of the Clayton Peacock is the happiest tune on this album.

Medley: Sandy on Earth/I’ll See You in My Dreams

The major surprise on the record. Whilst all the preceding songs were (over) familiar to fans, Sandy on Earth, formerly known as The Nut House, is the masterpiece from the great 1977 sessions which remain (as of 2006) unreleased. The original version contained minor if marvellous electronic enhancements; this version is plain. The composition is anything but, however, and retains the power to amaze and enchant. Even non-Fahey fans have been known to enjoy this one.

From the sleeve notes: Sandy on Earth, Fahey says, “is really the fun house, a place where reality slips and slides, expands and contracts. Fahey’s love of Russian composers is hinted at alongside more Walter Hawkins’ riffs. Then Charley Patton meets Sabicas as sudden flamenco flourishes erupt, and with them some percussive string snapping. I’ll See You In My Dreams is a bittersweet Depression-era pop standard Fahey loves, as did country fingerpicker Merle Travis. Fahey plays it hard – you can almost hear the strings wince under his attack.