the funeral music (and requiem) for takoma john fahey

there is a requiem for mississippi john hurt but then there’s also a requiem for john hurt, but then there’s a funeral song for mississippi john hurt - they are all by john fahey. this is what happens when you don’t keep track of your versions, or your titles (or even the master tapes of your recordings). sooner or later these tunes will end up all sequed together with other tunes anyway.

purcell suffers with the same problem - his music for the funeral of queen mary (first performed march 1695) also gets variously titled (when it’s not being played on synthesizers by wendy carlos for the soundtrack of a clockwork orange). just as many hymn tunes are either lifted from popular songs or go on to become the tunes of popular songs so purcell recycled this music as part of incidental music for thomas shadwell's play the libertine.

holy mountain mission (montreal 2009 probably now paying as part of Ol Savannah) and gwenifer raymond (brighton 2018) have variously attempted fahey-esque songs under the title requiem for john fahey.

horsemouth has had a crack at a funeral music (originally intended to be a funeral music for john fahey and robbie basho - but horsemouth decided the title was way too long). this was a retroactive title (when he realised quite how much he’d lifted from john fahey for it). he’s lifted next to nothing from robbie basho for it (but he felt that basho deserved being honoured anyway).

there is little in horsemouth's repertoire that is fahey-esque anyway (horsemouth is no longer much of a finger picker and instrumentalist, he's much more interested in singing.


horsemouth is of the opinion that modern horror films are rubbish - here's a clip from the original version of suspiria  to prove his point (soundtrack by the mighty goblin).