Where Joaquin Came From, How He Got Lost, And Where He Turned Up Again

This is weird. Someone made this "video" using numerous images of/about Joaquin Murietta and it was forwarded to me. Bob and I wrote and recorded this song and it's included on "World Without End". It's not odd that someone used the song. That's quite common, as you well know, and a number of our songs have been used this way. I don't mind at all. I think it's interesting to see what people do with them: sometimes it's interesting, anyway (other times amusing, sometimes disturbing). But regardless it's always entertaining. And YouTube's a beautifully populist platform for anyone who wants to create anything with noise and images in it. So when somebody uses your song to do it, whether you're too hip to admit it or not, it's pretty fucking humbling.

There's great comments. One from a guy who says he likes the video but the choice of music was "strange". A few from Chileans who believe Joaquin Murietta to be an unrecognized Saint of sorts; their Robin Hood - a man who took on American citizens in California, stealing from and killing white miners (who'd killed and stolen mining rights and land from South Americans and Mexicans). He's loved by Chileans in much the same way as Santo Jesus Malverde (also known as The Patron Saint of Narcotraficantes), is loved by many Mexicans. Of course the Roman Catholic Church, my church, remains too boring and stagnant to beatify either. I guess it would be a hard sell: a marauding killer hell-bent on retribution and a thief hung in Sinaloa now asked for guidance and safe-passage by Mexican drug runners. Here's Joaquin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Murrieta And here's Malverde: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_Malverde

What's weird about this video is that the actual recording is from the 4-track demos Bob and I recorded upstairs at his house as we wrote them. We then compiled them, edited them, etc., until we had the songs for what would become "World Without End". Only Bob and I ever had copies of the demos. I'm pretty sure that no one else even heard them. Almost positive. Because they were meant as reference, not something to listen to per se. They weren't ever meant to be listened to as "songs". Hell, I don't even have my copy of the demos anymore. I wish I did. So in that sense it's great to hear this. But I wanna hear the rest of them again. I don't even remember what the songs were like then (before they became the involved productions they did on the record). So it's strange. And kinda awesome. And disturbing. And all that....