got another demo for ya.
last year my boyfriend and i were in edinburgh, and had decided to take a late night walk. we didn’t really know where we wanted to go, but we went out anyway. it was a quiet weeknight and the sun was long gone.
somehow we ended up at the bottom of the royal mile, where the buildings start to get really old. they have tiny little windows and shiny souvenir shops are replaced by dusty tea rooms. down here, at the bottom, you have three things — scottish parliament, holyrood palace, and holyrood park. holyrood park is a mainly treeless expanse beneath the volcanic mound called arthurs seat and the connecting cliffs of the salisbury crags.
we approached the black iron gate to the park. it was open and for a minute we considered crossing the threshold, into darkness. above, the crags rose up like a tidal wave, silent and looming, ready to crash down if we turned our gaze elsewhere. there was something so ancient and eerie about them. the longer we looked, it felt like they were advancing, like some sort of rocky burnham wood.
i was back in edinburgh last week, and on a walk down nicholson street i caught glimpses of the crags and arthurs seat down the aisle of every connecting street. there were yellow flowers on the hills and you could even see little silhouettes of people standing on the top. it felt like such a different feeling, looking at those hills all sprinkled with happy people who had climbed up while on holiday, to point and look at the city and take photographs. it wasn’t anything like the dark mass that faced my boyfriend and i that night in october.
and then you add into the mix the fact that it’s all the remnants of an extinct volcano. arthurs seat and the crags are volcanic plugs, just like devils tower (were you here for the giant tree people conversation?). it made me think, maybe the fear we felt when looking at the crags in the dark was us feeling close to the primordial existence of those cliffs? maybe we felt an ounce of their old power, that night? or maybe, it was just spooky.
either way, i decided to put all these feelings into a song.
it’s still definitely at a demo stage, but i wanted to share it with you anyway.
also, good to know if you don’t — arthurs seat is often described as a lion. you can see if it you look at it from a certain angle: a lion in repose.
things i liked
✶ i want to visit the duck parade hotel
✶ are coastal wolves turning into seals?
✶ the cottage i stayed in over easter had these grant shaffer comics on the walls and i really liked them
✶ my bf and i watched flee the other day and it’s so incredibly done.
✶ i, obviously, love this illustration:
do you like getting demos in the mail? i hope ya do!* i have about 10 more songs to write for this project and being able to share them with you is really fun.
have a great week,
olivia ✨🌿
*i can’t reread that sentence over doing it in a mickey mouse voice. is my email tone mickey mouse? please let me know
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