So there’s this UK band I follow on Twitter, called We Walk The Earth. Okay, I follow 5,698 accounts on Twitter at the moment – fewer than I once did, but you know, things have gone on….
Anyway, I’ve interacted with these folks a bit too.
And so the one night, the constellation Orion was shining through parted clouds, clear as day, over my backyard. I took a photo, and I was pleased with how the camera on my most recent phone took the shot and allowed for a bit of an edit, so I posted it.
So there it is. The 3 stars that are more horizontal are his belt, and the 3 stars that are more vertical are the scabbard for his sword, and like all constellations – you have to use your imagination a little. But you probably know all that.
There were no romantic connotations or anything, but I posted the photo on February 14th.
On February 15th, We Walk The Earth got back to me with the reply “Wrote a song about it.” Well, they wrote a song about Orion the Hunter, with an apt title. Their album The Ice Storm was released on November 25, 2022, so the song obviously isn’t about my photo. That’s okay, though. This isn’t about me.
The winter air is cold
It burns into my soul
The hunter fills the sky
It’s not my place to question why
I live in semi-northern Canada, and it got to minus 37 degrees Celsius one day last week. So even though We Walk The Earth “… is an exploration of dark, inner geographies, and the processes that shape us. It is an exercise in catharsis. It has slide guitars! (according to JM Gagen, who is “We Walk The Earth” when, well, walking the earth, as it were),” the lyrics feel quite real to me. For you folks who have not converted to the metric system, minus 40 degrees is the same temperature in both systems, and it translates to “———– COLD.”
(To be honest, Canadians haven’t fully converted to the metric system either. We’re synthesists. That’s another subject, though).
So yeah, the dark, inner geographies and processes do happen to match the darkness and outer geographies and processes around here. Catharsis and slide guitars go together, too, it turns out.
NASA wants to get in on the whole Orion vibe, apparently, and send a capsule named Orion to the moon via the Artemis mission, eventually – with people in it, too. They’ve spit it a fair ways up already, and then let it splashdown in December – without people in it – as one of their tests. They had probably just found out about We Walk The Earth’s plans and tried to get ahead of the music, I figure.
The Ice Storm is available on Bandcamp. It comes in an environmentally friendly 4-panel CD pack. There just was an ice storm this past weekend, which affected a large part of North America, as it happens. If CCR can come from Northern California, and legitimately sound like they came from Louisiana, then I guess We Walk The Earth can come from the United Kingdom and write songs about winter and ice storms. Seems fair.
Check them out!
