Free Download of Our Theme Song

In February of 2009 I wrote and recorded a pair of songs about my desperate need for travel. We thought it would be nice to share them will all our supporters, so here, absolutely free, is the MP3 of Camels Lash/Not Just Believe

About the Music

Camel’s Lash

Inspired by a photo I saw of a caravan of camels, taken from the air. Miles and miles of red sand, and those camels trudging across the waste. Something inspiring and grand about it.

Other than cymbal, mandolin, vocal, and egg shakers, this is all my cheap Casio keyboard. Since I’ve never been able to make looping work, I actually played all repetitive percussion tracks (eight of them) all the way through. Assisted on the egg shakers by Fiona who was 4 at the time.

Camel’s Lash is the instrumental introduction to . . .

Not Just Believe

for Robyn Davidson (and myself)

A long time ago in I heard someone on TV talking about how restrained their life had been, how they’d read about far off places but never been anywhere. She summed it up by saying, “I want to know, not just believe, the world is round.” It struck me, even then, that I’ve always felt that way.

I could make these liner notes into a book about how badly I suffer from wanderlust.

A caravan of angry camels tramping o’er the dunes
Precious cargo swaying to and fro
They circle round and round the map that’s tacked up on my wall
As I lay restless, dreaming here below

They never seem to tire as they make their dusty way
Endlessly they circle ’round and ’round
They never take me with ’em on a journey far away
To see the things that Marco Polo found

I want to know the world is round
Not just believe

I read about those far off lands and wonder what it’s like
To wander through a market in Peru
To taste the precious spices of Madagascar‘s coast
And ride a camel into Timbuktu

Let me see the sails of a flying clipper ship
Grow on the horizon as it nears
Show me what the jungle’s like in darkest Africa
And the beauty of the garden in Algiers

I want to know the world is round
Not just believe

With Slocum and with Dana, two years before the mast
Help Amundsen find Scott in frozen lands
Then warmer climes with Ibn Battuta, out of old Tangier
Learn wisdom’s seven pillars in the sands

I want to tramp with Halliburton that romantic road
For seven years I’ll ponder in Tibet
Fly with Saint-Exupéry into the desert sands
And make a mark no one will e’er forget

I want to know the world is round
Not just believe

© 2009-2010 Joel D Canfield

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