A year later I brought out a single ‘Fire and Light / Where the Pole Star Lies’
‘Fire and Light’ is inspired by an image of a vast, remote uninhabited plain below a mountain region. This sense of vastness and the dark emptiness of the places became a metaphor for those inner spaces inside us that have become dark or forgotten. It’s a song about finding things we lost, and returning to the ‘Fire and Light’. A version of this song with SoundZanobi was made for our Other Visions album of 2018.
‘Where the Pole Star Lies’ uses the metaphor of a constellation for guidance and finding direction in uncertain moments.
The Great Bear is a constellation in the sky, which includes The Big Dipper or The Plough. The end two stars of The Big Dipper are called The Pointers. Wherever you are in the night, if you locate The Pointers you can trace a line from these stars to find due north – the Pole Star.
The Pole star or Polaris is directly above the north pole of the earth and remains there always. All other stars appear to move slowly from east to west as the earth rotates, but the Pole Star stays fixed at due north.
I took the image of a star that is always constant and never moves – ‘an ever fixed light’ – as representing a place of security and direction in a night sky full of thousands of stars and light. A point of reference when you’re lost or unsure
To find Polaris you need to first find the Great Bear in the night sky and trace The Pointers with your eye ‘to where the Pole Star lies’.
Listen to ‘Where the Pole Star Lies’ on my Soundcloud page – https://soundcloud.com/peter-dulborough/where-the-pole-star-lies