I started writing this song sometime in 2013 after watching a documentary on Paul Simon’s Graceland album. I wanted something with some strong rhythm, and the lyrics (working through personal feelings, as usual) were largely written at the same time as the music. I didn’t have a title, though, and it wasn’t until a couple of years later that the “sing open the circle” coda came to me and provided the title. The song became part of the Chameleon Red set list before that band went on hiatus. It was the first song worked on for what became the Postcards From the Whirlwind album. I had most of the instrumental tracks, including the African drums recorded by Kirk Roberts and myself, done before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
I finished recording the song in June 2020, as #3 in the Covid isolation series, with my backing vocalists recording their parts separately and sending the files to me for mixing. (Most of) the same women helped me make the video. It was a lot of fun dancing around a fire at night, even though we masked for fear of spreading the disease and it was pretty hot.
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