I have to say, anything that reminds me of that mid-seventies run of classic albums that propelled Jethro Tull to become arguably one of the decade’s biggest bands has to be a good thing, right? Right. I’m not implying that The Grey and Purple Songbook is in any way merely riding on coattails here; there is something distinctly Nordic about ‘Fateful Ski Trip,’ not least the song’s title, and it certainly has it’s own sense of musicality, but it ticks a lot of the same boxes as that band did for me.
Folky and finessed, full of ornate guitar work and fluttering flutes, and drawing on not just sonic drama but lyrical poignancy too, the song tells the story of a daring adventure to save the infant heir to the Norwegian throne and thus end nearly 50 years of instability and warfare in the region.
The male/female vocal blends are fantastic; the ebb and flow of the sonic dynamics add impetus to this medieval tale, and it covers a lot of ground in its three and a half minutes: understatement is quickly consumed by more anthemic sounds, space is replaced by crescendo, and the tension is palpable; the tale is poignant, the music powerful.
Folk music was always a storytelling device, a way of informing as well as entertaining, of keeping history alive and reminding us who we are and where we come from; ‘Fateful Ski Trip’ is not only a song very much in that tradition but that tradition sonically writ large.
Heady stuff indeed,
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