My most-streamed composition so far was written in the Nicaraguan mountains. In 2018, I lived in a town called Diriamba. We stayed on the second floor of a large house in town. The weather was sultry, and the noise of funeral processions, bar fights, farmers on horseback, and the crowing of a giant mechanical cockerel—an evil mascot for a chicken restaurant, blaring even at 5 a.m.—poured into the room.
I wrote two pieces there: Olvidar, which started on electric guitar, and a long ambient piece designed to help my wife sleep, which eventually became Silent Vapour Trail. Both tracks appear on one of my “travel” albums, Connections.
Now, Silent Vapour Trail has only had a modest number of listens across platforms, but I once uploaded it to SoundCloud under the name Relaxing Music to Help You Fall Asleep. It’s now had over 4,000 listens—which is a lot for the non–Justin Biebers of the world, like myself.
That must be down to the name—it promises something useful. But the thing is, the music does help my wife and me sleep. Life was stressful before we arrived in Nicaragua, so I deliberately wrote a long, meditative piece to help us (and anyone else) chill out.
Still, it makes me wonder—what if all my songs had titles that promised something? Love Song to Make You Feel Romantic, Upbeat Tune to Get You on the Dance Floor, Thoughtful Folk Song…
Maybe that would help listeners who don’t know or care about my music. But it wouldn’t feel honest. I called it Silent Vapour Trail because it sounded poetic, it suited my mood at the time, and I could see airplanes drifting across the pink Nicaraguan evening sky as I wrote it.
Then again, maybe none of that matters. Somewhere out there, a tired soul has drifted off to sleep listening to whatever this piece is called, blissfully unaware of the song’s origin—or its writer.
Sweet dreams.
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