Kashmir
“Life is a journey that must be travelled,
no matter how bad the roads and accommodation”
– Oliver Goldsmith
Many have talked about ‘virtual travel’ in this very strange year. Well, here’s a journey, via sound.
We’ve never been to Kashmir. We will go one day. We were listening to this beautiful song the other night. It immediately transports me to many places and different times.
I don’t remember Led Zeppelin in their heyday. I was a child. But about a decade later, like many teenagers, I discovered Stairway to Heaven at college, and it kind of went from there.
We were lucky to be able to watch Robert Plant perform live in Abu Dhabi, WOMAD, in it’s first year. I met him briefly before, in the backstage bar. We had won weekend passes to the festival. I think I managed a hello. I was kind of lost for words.
Fortunately he was not.
He went on stage and belted out tune after tune. He would have been in his 60s then but his voice was still mesmerising; hauntingly beautiful, echoing across the sands of the beach. Abu Dhabi’s Corniche was crowded for the headline act at the festival. There must have been over 25,000 people there.
As usual, there were collaborations, violin melodies and African drum beats, fused with Plant’s unique, powerful voice.
Has anyone ever had a voice like Robert Plant?
There’s a great travellers tale to this brilliant song. It was originally titled Driving To Kashmir but the song was nothing to do with Northern India.
Apparently Robert Plant had started to write the lyrics in the autumn of 1973, after a long, meandering journey, one of those seemingly never-ending drives, that most travellers will relate to.
They were passing through what Plant called “the waste lands” of southern Morocco. And yet in interviews Robert Plant has often said that it was Moroccan traditional music that has been a particular source of inspiration.
When I listen to this song, I’m reminded of so many places in the Middle East and Asia, so many people, so many journeys.
Isn’t it amazing, that one song can do that?
Which song transports you to another place?
© Maggie M / Mother City Time
Source: You Tube