My music was featured as the theme song for “Wamkelekile - Welcome Back,” a short film about an estranged son, Lukhanyo, who reunites with his mentally challenged father, Simpiwe, for the first time in ten years. Released in Cape Town, South Africa for a November 2008 premier, the film has been nominated for Best Film and Best Director for the AFDA awards in Cape Town.
Below is the trailer, featuring music I arranged and performed for the film. The song “When I Was Nine” was written by Claude Morcos. With his permission, I made a few tweaks in the arrangement, and recorded it as the theme song for the film.
Wamkelekile - Welcome Back Trailer
It’s light hearted film with a heartwarming story, shot in the beautiful medium of 16mm film. The primary language is “iXhosa,” though the film has English subtitles. The soundtrack includes music by a number of international artists including Jack Johnson and Hot Water.
You can get more info on the film through Facebook, or visit the official website:
http://welcomebackthefilm.co.za/
Posted by Wheeler at 10:32 AM. Filed under: Before Leaving
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A composition and recording from early this year
Waiting On My Life To Start
Posted by Wheeler at 10:32 AM. Filed under: Original Music
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Foxtails on Fire
Foxtails on fire and thumbs to the sky
The Lord couldn’t wait till you stood by his side
So welcome home!
The angels came by thousand on high to sing praise
when you arrived at last!
Now there is no end to your days! danville breast enhancement
They couldn’t wait till you got to these gates,
The devil has no power to hurt. Though he tried,
Jesus caught your soul in the sky.
Foxtails on fire and thumbs to the sky,
the Lord couldn’t wait till you stood by his side.
For the family of
Dave Petrescue (1953-2006)
.
Samson said to them, “This time I won’t be responsible when I harm the Philistines.” So he went out and caught 300 foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the piles of grain and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
Judges 15:3-5
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Posted by Wheeler at 10:32 AM. Filed under: Egypt, Original Music
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The Deconstruction of Babel
Come let us build a tower that will reach the sky
Oh as we raise this city, men will come from the East
and we will build a name
But I never ask for much
’cause I have all I need.
Don’t you wonder how I
can get by with my time
never saying a word?
It’s cause I never ask for much
and I have all I need.
So I don’t need your tower to the sky,
The grass withers and the flowers die.
Your tower will fade too, in time.
I don’t ask for much
’cause I have all that I need.
Oh, you can build your name,
but the Lord has given me mine
and I have all that I need.
Inspired in part by Genesis 11:5-7
differin and wrinkles
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Posted by Wheeler at 10:32 AM. Filed under: Egypt, Original Music
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Though loved ones may only exist in our lives for a season, we do not forget them when they are gone.
Rubberband Song
She said “It’s my gift to you,”
Then put it over my hand and she laughed at me.
She would call it funny but I never really got the joke
and I wore that band ’til it turned black and broke
Oh how I prayed that it would last
’til the end of the earth
So I tied it in a knot and then I
put it on again until it wore too thin
to stretch around my hand.
Oh how I prayed that it would last
’til the end of the earth.
Oh how I prayed that on my wrist
you would see the way I feel.
Trespassing over old abandoned rock quarries and fields,
If I had been alone, I never would have had the guts to go
Where fireflies fought the stars above to give us light
the casualty was night
and grass up to her waste helped us to hide.
Oh how I prayed,
and I guess that if she never left my mind
it would last ’til the end of time.
The Story of a Sunburn
I spent a day on an island in an ocean of blue
the sun there was angry and strong.
I couldn’t help thinking of you.
Oh please hear me before you decide you know what I’ll say.
I don’t mean that you left me sunburned and peeling away
But I couldnt sleep on my back for days.
Remember the time we drove to the river at night
and we walked along in the dark
until we lost my car.
Oh we wondered the road that winds where the river winds too.
Each step away from the car but each one a bit closer to you.
Each step was closer to you.
They say we grow closed as we grow older,
we start to board ourselves in
And the light starts to hurt our eyes
when we open the windows to let it in.
I think it’s more like we search by the daylight
and when we’ve found enough we come in
‘Cause oh the freedom of day burned my pride away,
And the sun was too strong so the night was all I could long for.
And so that sunburn made me wish that I was with you,
to wind where the river winds too.
A Voice Calls Out
A voice calls out both loud and clear
from the desert sun and sand
“Prepare a road with your two hands!”
We shall go there, you and I
Beneath a desert sky,
To build a highway for the Lord to come again.
Raise the valley to the plains,
Every mountaintop must fall.
The road it must be straight
So all will see Him as He comes,
And all will know His name -
The one John the Baptist spoke of on Jordan’s banks
(Prepare a highway)
And all will see him as he comes again.
A voice says, “Cry out!” loud and clear
from the desert, hot and dry.
“Men will whither, like the grass they die.”
So we asked, “What shall we cry?!”
Scared that we might fade.
We heard, “Shout and do not be afraid.”
(The recording isn’t bad for living out of a backpack, right?
Posted by Wheeler at 10:32 AM. Filed under: Original Music
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The creation of music is a rare right of passage binding impression to melody, flesh to soul, the tangible to the intangible. For the next twelve months, I seek to write, play and experience music with people in the context of other cultures I do not know as intimately as my own.