Skipping Stones - Graham Tilsley (original) - Live

Описание: Every now and then I hear about musicians that sit down and within 5-10 minutes, a song is created. For me, the music of this song happened that very way. I picked up a guitar and the opening riff just ‘fell’ out of me. The rest of the instrumentation happened fairly quickly, however, the lyrics and vocal melodies took quite some time. I had come up with several ideas that I felt were all mediocre and scrapped them all.

After an entire month of rewriting vocal parts, I found myself staring at a photo that hangs in my studio. It’s a beautiful photo of mountains and trees reflecting in a lake. This got me thinking about how memory works. Something can be crisp and clear during the moment, but if you look at the images in the water, they are blurred, just like our memories distort over time. The photo reminds me of when I’ve been to that location, but my recollection is fickle and I’ve started to combine different trips together. For example, I don’t think it was my father who actually taught me to skip stones. It may have been my brother, but honestly I’m not positive.


The music to this song is heavily influenced by some of my favourite musicians. The riff sounds inspired by Cory Wong, and then transitions to more of a Bahamas-style of progression with the rhythm (verse) guitar.

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Skipping Stones Lyrics

Staring at the water
As it’s mirroring
Nature at its finest
Such beauty it brings

Rain distorts the image
Of mountains and the trees
Shapes are gone
But the colours remain
Like a distant memory

Skipping stones
Just like my father
Taught me
Reflections’ gone
With, with the water rippling
Skipping stones
Well serves no purpose for me
But it’s still such, such a vivid memory

I want to go back there
To lakes among the trees
Reliving all the good times
And to savour everything

Even if they’re obscured
By times few and far between
My recollection is vague
I’m wondering if I am even remembering

Or am I conjuring images
From pictures I did not take
Fabricating tales
To avoid the pains and the aches

Altered photographs
And I watch them fade away
Cleaning old pathways
To create more mental space