Pale Mourner
‘The light wraps you in its mortal flame.
Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way
against the old propellers of the twilight
that revolves around you.’
Excerpt from The Light Wraps You – Pablo Neruda.
I draw a lot of musical inspiration from the poems of Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973). He was a Chilean diplomat and politician who also happened to be one of the greatest love poets of all time. Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.
Although it’s not Pablo Neruda’s intent — when I read the excerpt above — I immediately visualized a mourning angel. I’m a happy go-lucky guy. I’m not exactly sure why my personal music has such a brooding feel. Maybe it’s a divining rod situation — where I’m just channeling it from our collective environment.
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Spotify and streaming
You can find Pale Mourner on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and all streaming services:
and thank you for listening!
How to play Pale Mourner | fingerstyle guitar
The guitar tab for this piece is beautifully written across 3 pages. I recommend it for intermediate guitar players and up. Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:
My song structure is relatively simple:
Verse, Chorus
Verse, Chorus, Verse
Throughout the verse, I’m playing little chord shapes on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings. While the tab indicates that I’m playing single notes on the 1st string — I’m really swiping away at those strings. Feel free to use loose, and liberal right-hand movements.
**Pale Mourner – Evan Handyside (Ambient, World guitar)
This piece is tuned in Open-G with a capo on the 2nd fret. Your tuning will look like this from low to high: D G D G B D (then a capo on the 2nd fret.)