Life in the Tannery - What does it all mean?
Life in the Tannery is the third track on the Whisper & the Hurricane. It is a rhythmic afrobeat/reggae rock piece in 4/4 and Eb Dorian.
With this song, I wanted to create something a bit more riff based and liked the idea of almost mechanical repetition alongside pounding drums. The idea was to create a feeling similar to being on a conveyer belt.
But I didn't want to use sequencing and samples - I still wanted the piece to have a live feel. The song is about a self-inflicted daily grind. The narrator wants to escape it, but at the same time feels protected by it. He/she is given ample opportunities to let go, but chooses not to - "You look into my heart and see rusty gears and cobwebs, then you begin to realise at last that I'm not really here."
The original title for Snapdragon was 'The Tannery' but I changed it as I didn't feel it worked. However I liked the idea of a song about a daily grind happening in quite bizarre circumstances - ie a place where cattle were killed for their hides to be tanned (a tannery is a factory where leather is made), hence the slightly tongue-in-cheek title Life in the Tannery.
