Words Falling Slow – Spiral Down

Words Falling Slow is a twice weekly blog series written by Michael Timmins in which he writes about the writing, recording, history and inspiration behind some of the songs included in the Notes Falling Slow box set. You can pre-order Notes Falling Slow here. You can listen to a new recording from the box set here.

When I was 17 years old I learnt to fly. I eventually got my commercial license and was heading for a career in aviation when a voice inside me said, “stop, this is not your path”. One of the first things that you are taught when you are getting your license is how to recognize a spiral (basically when you see the earth spinning in your windscreen and getting larger by the second) and, more importantly, how to get out of one. There are standard techniques to employ when recovering from a spiral in an airplane, not so in life. It’s inevitable, it’s written in to our DNA, everyone’s life will end, even those that are closest to us. There is no recovery, the best thing that we can do is make peace with the idea. But doing so is so much more difficult than memorizing; idle power; apply opposite rudder and push the steering column forward.