SCP #29: Selkie

So far the most reliable source of inspiration for this project has been folklore.  I'm not sure if it's because I feel comfortable working in that kind of lyrical and thematic realm, or if it's just what I'm interested in right now, but I turned there again for today's piece.  I started with the word skin from yesterday, and the first Google search result for "skin folklore" was selkie, which proved a fertile place to start.  

Selkies are seals that are able to shed their skins and take on human form.  They appear in the folklore of several countries, and I found plenty of fascinating folk stories featuring both selkie men and selkie women.  One of the most common seemed to be the selkie woman, whose skin is stolen by a man while she is in human form, meaning she is unable to return to the sea.  She has no choice but to wed the man, and often fathers children.  In some of the stories her children help find the skin, hidden by their father, so that she can return to her people, although I didn't get that far into the story in my own selkie song.

I took the minor harmony from yesterday's piece, and made the most of the reverse-delay on the guitar pedal I bought today.  Not counting my loop pedal (which until recently I've only used with my voice), it's my very first guitar effect pedal.  Back when I was living in my first share house, undistracted by TV and the internet and writing lots of songs, I never would have imagined owning any pedals.  They seemed like toys reserved for those other musicians who knew how to play guitar "properly", and would have required a self-conscious trip to the guitar store to try things out in front of staff and other customers.  I really wish I'd had some to experiment with back then, but I suppose I have this whole year of songs to make up for lost time.