John Kirnan was just a boy when his father died. One of the few memories he has of their time together is playing catch with him. As well as being a big hockey fan, John's father loved baseball too, and was very involved in organizing games for the local teams.
John wrote this instrumental for his father about 15 years ago, decades after his death. The title Sliding Home has several meanings. For one thing, it's a slide guitar piece (open G tuning: D G D G B D). And “home” is a word that John often uses when writing about existence beyond life - whatever place or state his father is in now. But the phrase itself comes from baseball. John says:
I've always found it interesting that in baseball when you successfully "slide home," you're "safe."
There's a connection to the film Field of Dreams as well. It's always been a significant movie for John – baseball, fathers, and believing in your dreams. There's a particular passage in Sliding Home that always makes John feel closer to his father. So although he hadn't deliberately spun the magic when composing a tune in his memory, as it turns out, a conjuring of emotions happens anyway. As John says:
I guess it's a bit like, "If you write it, he will come."
To download the mp3 file, Sliding Home, right-click on the link and select Save Link As.
To download the "Black Moon" album, visit the Black Moon album page.
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