Ian Anderson - A Raft Of Penguins video free download

Another track off of Ian Anderson's latest solo album Rupi's Dance.

Lyrics - A raft of penguins on a frozen sea.

Expectant faces look down on me.

Shuffle uneasy. The whistler plays.

Counting eleven, they begin to pray.

Tenuous but clinging, the missing link

Joins us, closer than we might think.

Some half remembered coarse jungle drum

A naked heart-beat, trill and hum.

This worlds no stage for the faint at heart.

Each symphony, a sum of parts.

Each overture, a sweet foreplay.

Lets crash and burn some other day.

Bonded in terror or suspicion deep

Tentative tiptoe or giant leap

Call down the angels to guide them in

A raft of penguins take to the wing.

Ian Anderson Vocals, flute, piccolo, wooden flute, acoustic guitars

Leslie Mandoki Drums, and percussion

Laszlo Bencker Keyboards

The Sturcz String Quartet

Having worked, over these many years, with various orchestral forces from solo woodwind players through string quartets to the more-or-less symphony orchestra, I remain entranced at the differences and misconceptions present in the mutual understanding or lack thereof in such gatherings of minds and music.

Who is the more terrified in such encounters? Me or them? I play a bit out of tune, out of time and read not a not a note of those Dead Sea Scrolls written so carefully upon the stave of life. But when the wind gets up and the music stand blows over, I can busk it with the best of them. Its all in the head, you see. And in the heart. And that improvisational adventure is a mystery to many a first fiddler and his tribe.

Here is an affectionate musing on the scary delights of fronting an orchestra in the face of a paying public.

Funny old birds, penguins