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banjo
February 2009 
Reflections on a Song of Love + Rebirth
Posted on Jun 12th, 2007
by 
jpjako
jpjako
Here's a song written + played by me. I play it through a Fender Bassman amp from the 70's. I wrote the song five years ago when there was nothing more valuable for me than making music.
The video is filmed in the bedroom of our apartment. You can see an old mandolin, probably from the 1950's, on top of the amplifier. It was supposed to keep my former girlfriend's grandfather from drinking. It didn't work.
The banjo on the right was given to me by my sister Mia. Her friends found it in the garage of their house in a garbage can after moving in. I remember trying to fix the poor fella, sitting in an easy chair in front of my sister's house in Camargue, the sun shining, snakes hissing and the Mistral wind moving the tall grass in steady undulating waves. I was alone for the first time in another country, and my sister and her boyfriend were away from home working. I sat there plucking the rusty old strings, trying to make it sound as least annoying as I could with my meager talents and my garbage sale instrument. I remember a neighbour passing me by on the dirt road in front of the house. He looked unphased, probably having been used to people raising a ruckus in the midday Camargue sun. After all, Pastis was and still is a favourite drink to cool down from a morning's worth of riding horses, herding cattle or dealing with German tourists.
Coming back home I tried to retain something of the impressions of Camargue. I rarely played the banjo again, to be quite honest, but having it hang on the wall gave me certain confidence. You know, when you got something like that looking at you all day long it's got to give you an idea or two, at least on an occasion. I wouldn't know that for a fact, though. Having a heartbreak certainly gives you ideas. That's where this one comes from; of that I'm pretty damn sure.
Armoury of Love
The video is filmed in the bedroom of our apartment. You can see an old mandolin, probably from the 1950's, on top of the amplifier. It was supposed to keep my former girlfriend's grandfather from drinking. It didn't work.
The banjo on the right was given to me by my sister Mia. Her friends found it in the garage of their house in a garbage can after moving in. I remember trying to fix the poor fella, sitting in an easy chair in front of my sister's house in Camargue, the sun shining, snakes hissing and the Mistral wind moving the tall grass in steady undulating waves. I was alone for the first time in another country, and my sister and her boyfriend were away from home working. I sat there plucking the rusty old strings, trying to make it sound as least annoying as I could with my meager talents and my garbage sale instrument. I remember a neighbour passing me by on the dirt road in front of the house. He looked unphased, probably having been used to people raising a ruckus in the midday Camargue sun. After all, Pastis was and still is a favourite drink to cool down from a morning's worth of riding horses, herding cattle or dealing with German tourists.
Coming back home I tried to retain something of the impressions of Camargue. I rarely played the banjo again, to be quite honest, but having it hang on the wall gave me certain confidence. You know, when you got something like that looking at you all day long it's got to give you an idea or two, at least on an occasion. I wouldn't know that for a fact, though. Having a heartbreak certainly gives you ideas. That's where this one comes from; of that I'm pretty damn sure.
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