Garth Hudson: The Breakers

Written by Eric Andersen and Garth Hudson, performed by Garth and Maud Hudson
Album: The Sea to the North, 2001

Listen: (live version)

This little gem of a of track from Garth's 2001 solo album The Sea to the North opens with a very "The Weight"-like guitar, and ends in the same way. In between the Robbie-Robertson-inspired guitar-intro and -outro, Garth weaves his magic carpet with keyboards, accordion and saxophones, behind his wife Maud Hudson's dream-like, beautiful vocals. Maud told us, during a visit to see the Hudson's in upstate NY in 2002, that the "The Breakers", with its Eric Andersen-penned lyrics, is "really about he guys in The Band when they were young". Not very obvious to me, but if Maud says so, then that's how it is!

A live version of the song, re-titled "Beyond the Breakers", can be found on Garth and Maud Hudson's 2005 album Live at the Wolf. The lyrics below are transcribed from this live recording.

Lyrics

Somewhere in the emerald clouds
Above the cobalt blue
Pinned upon a golden sail
The heart of me and you

I am water
You are air
Swimming in the rain

Floating free
Beyond the breakers
Gliding on the diamond ways

Like scattered crystals
On a waterfall of pearls
Floating close together
Through the rainbow world

Somewhere in the emerald clouds
Above the cobalt blue
Pinned upon a golden sail
The heart of me and you

I am water
You are air
Swimming in the rain
Floating free
Beyond the breakers
Gliding on the diamond way

Somewhere in the emerald clouds
Above the cobalt blue

Through the rainbow world
Gliding on the diamond ways
You and me