About the footage:
The footage is from the unfinished Orson Welles film
"It's all true" which he shot in Brazil.
As part of the "Good Neighbor Policy" of
WWII, Orson Welles was appointed an "ambassador" to Brazil in 1942 and was commissioned to shoot a three-part film
that captured the spirit of the country. Unfortunately, a regime change at his film studio RKO shut the film down, and simultaneously
sabotaged the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons. It crushed Orson. Almost for good.
Welles had just come off the making of the brilliant classic "Citizen Kane"
- but because he had dared to take on William Randolph Hearst - (and because his treatment of him might not have been fair)
- Welles received the most crunching stifling power play any artist could receive; he was quietly and forcibly blacklisted.
Despite being inarguably a total genius.
This fascinating
1993 documentary unearths much of the footage that Welles shot, including black-and-white and Technicolor footage of Carnivale
as well as the tale of the four fishermen who sailed 1600 miles on a raft seeking fair treatment from the government.
All the footage here is from the segment of "It's
all true" called "Four Men on a Raft."
I felt the
footage fit the soul of the song perfectly.
About
the lyrics:
This song has never been about religion for me. It is about compassion. It
started from a phone message I got from the wife of a friend of mine telling me that her husband had drowned. She said "The
pain is too strong, it's too hard, the hole in my heart is too big." It was powerful to say the least. Then my father
left a message where he closed as he always did with: "Keep the faith." I just felt they went together. That
was the basis of the song. It was about human beings dealing with strife and still keeping on.
Charlette
really resonated with the religious side, as well as the side I was feeling and she took a more scriptural approach. We see
things differently but respect each other's view, and enjoy making it multi-faceted. I like the fact that this song has
different co-existing interpretations.
That's one of the joys being in Poi Dog Pondering;
that there are so many people and so many view points, even just with-in the band. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
F.Q.Orrall
