As you can probably imagine, the Americana UK team like nothing better than getting out into the wilderness…the wilderness is, it turns out, our natural domain. The trouble with the wilderness though is that, popular album recording story aside, it is not overly well equipped with sturdy places to rest your head or compose text which aspires to be mildly amusing to accompany tracks…nope, there are not as many remote cabins as popular myth would assert. So, on occasions when logs stacked up to resemble houses are not available, we resort to the old standby of camping, and next to the tent of course we build the campfire. Which is where Joel Plaskett finally comes into our ramblings – because the east coast Canadian singer-songwriter was asked by the YMCA in Vancouver to play at their “virtual campfire” over the pandemic in 2021. He not only accepted but he decided to write a song for a real campfire and the real moon above.
Written with the beautiful simplicity of three chords, Plaskett started and finished ‘Hey Moon (A Campfire Song)‘ 15 minutes prior to recording it for the livestream. “This version gets kind of rocking for the summer festival stages but it’s basically a folk song at heart,” says Plaskett. “My hope is people will write their own verses for the moon and sing the chorus together.”
