Chords for Peter Gabriel - New Blood - San Jacinto

_ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ San Jacinto was _ [D] _
a mixture of things for me. _ _ _
_ _ The origin was from a hotel porter in the Midwest of America. _ _ _
And we used to drive around in a couple of cars _ [C] in those days and _ _ _ pulled in after a gig
to this hotel and [Db] the guy met us to take [Gb] the bags.
_ _ _ And I got [Eb] chatting [Eb] with him and [N] _ _ he _ said his mind was distracted a bit because he just
had a phone call saying his apartment was burning down in the city.
_ _ And _ he was worried because he had a cat there. _ _
_ _ _ So it appeared he didn't have any means of getting over there.
There was no public transport at that time of night.
So I offered to drive him in the car.
So [G] I did that and we stood outside his burning apartment _ and he was freaking out.
He wasn't in the least concerned about any of his possessions, which amazed me, but he
was concerned about the cat.
[F] And then a neighbor appeared who had actually managed to [C] get the cat out. _ _ _
_ And we went back _ afterwards [F] and back to the hotel and spent a long time talking and it
appeared that he'd been _ _ _ an Apache [D] brave and had been held on a trumped up murder charge
and had to move to the [C] Midwest.
_ _ I think, I don't know [Db] if he was escaping that or not, but [N] _ he started telling me about his
initiation and that _ when _ boys, _ I don't know, _ when they became sexually mature or reached
the age of 14, that they would be taken up.
And you find this in a lot of traditional cultures, that there's some _ _ confrontation
with death around puberty.
_ And he would be taken up to the mountain by the medicine man and the medicine man had
this old sack that he was carrying and in there _ were rattlesnakes.
And he then pulled out the rattlesnake _ until the snake had bitten the boy's arm.
And he was then left because they believed that you would have visions as a result of the poison.
_ If you made it back down to the village, you were a fully qualified brave and if you didn't
make it down, you were probably dead.
So, _ _ I think he was away several days, _ but managed to get down.
_ _ _ Anyway, he'd also told me about tying ribbons to trees and just some of the whole connection with nature.
And I'd been very fascinated by a lot of Native American culture and was reading books like
Black Elk Speaks and meeting some chiefs. _ _
_ And so then when I was climbing up San Jacinto, which is this mountain [Ab] outside of Palm Springs,
I started noticing some ribbons on trees and thinking.
So, I brought this whole sort of initiation story back to me [D] and I began thinking of a song.
_ _ At the same time, you go past, I mean, a bit in Palm [Db] Springs area, but _ definitely into
Arizona and other states where you'd see Native American culture being used to sell fast food
or discotheques at the time or whatever it was.
_ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
So, in a way, there was something still alive in nature and something that had [Ab] been turned
into a commercial tool _ by _ _ often the white culture, but it was a different _ _ _ reflection
of the _ Native American presence in America.
So, that began the song, but _ _ it was a sort of journey song in the same way that it was
a journey for the initiation of this boy.
_ _ [Fm] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Thick cloud, steam rising Hissing [Cm] stone on sweat [Fm] lodge fire _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ Sage and bundle rub on skin
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Outside cold air Stand and wait for rising sun _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Red paint, eagle feathers _ Coyote calling, it has begun _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Something moving in Tasted in my mouth and in my heart _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] It feels like dying _ _ _ slow
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
[Fm] _ Letting go, [D] I'll fly
If you listen to the two different versions of Sound of Cinto, you know, in the first,
you'll hear some of the sort of Steve Reich _ _ elements and we worked a lot on processing
the different natural sounds, so you get this sort of little cloud, slightly electronic
cloud around the instruments and the texture gradually builds and then you get the climax
with what are sampled strings.
And obviously with the orchestra, all this is translated into [Db] natural instruments and
[C] you can pay off, _ there's a section about an eagle flies down from the sun and _ _ _ that's
I think the emotional _ _ peak of the song for [Ab] me _ and it just opens up our natural instruments.
[Eb] _ Hold [Ab] the line, _
_ _ [Fm] _ _ _ _ [Db] Sound of Cinto
_ _ Yellow eagle [Eb] flies down [Ab] from the sun
_ [F]
From [Fm] the sun
_ _ [Db] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Cm] _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [Bbm] _ _ _
[Db] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ [Db] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _