I heard your voice through a photograph
I thought it up it brought up the past
I am in the high city of Granada as Easter blooms and snow falls. The white teeth of the Sierra Nevada gash the underbelly of a dark blue sky. I had planned on a Flamenco evening up in Sacromonte, on an outdoor terrace in the tiled roofscape, looking across a valley of cypress trees to the glowing Alhambra. But rising into the night I meet the snow flakes descending and the brittle beauty is achingly cold.
I am alone in the city of the guitar as the snow turns to sleet and commuters and revellers do that dance of the umbrellas city people do so well. At the zebra crossing a charge pulses the wet streets and I see this is still the city of the guitar. The zebra pattern turns to strings on a fretboard and rises like a magic carpet into the night connecting to all the cities at night where music throbs and guitarists strum.
I am walking home up Main Street at closing time, I am crossing Republic Square in Belgrade on a secret assignation, I am hearing whispered tales from the top of Grafton Street, I am crossing a rainy street in Soho with M and Davin, flashing tickets for Marcus Bonfanti to the man at the door of Ronnie Scott’s.
Here I am, on Calle Reyes Catolicos. I am bound for Hannigan’s Irish Bar, where drink flows in the quiet of the night, with a mix tape of all the songs rattling around my head, and a good sprinkling of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers to keep the cold at bay.
How long, how long will I slide
Separate my side
I don’t, I don’t believe it’s bad
Slit my throat, it’s all I ever …
The song is Otherside, by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, from their album released in 1999, Californication.
xxharrison 