In february 2012 I had the misfortune of breaking my right arm in two places while ice skating on the frozen waterways of North Holland. Ice skating in the winter is very big part of Dutch culture and as a native Welshman I decided early on during my residency in The Netherlands that it would be a good gesture to learn to ice skate in my quest to integrate into Dutch society. Well after many long and pleasurable skating tours spanning about 30 years I was finally and brutally punished for my assimilation efforts.
It was a very painful experience and for weeks I was unable to sleep properly. After about 3 weeks I carefully started to move my arm slightly in an attempt to play piano again. I was quite surprise at how quickly I progressed from playing just a few notes with my right hand to moving on to arpeggios just weeks later. The guitar on the other hand was a different story and I had great difficulty getting my right arm in a position over the body of the guitar. Basically the body of the guitar was too thick to get my arm across it. It was during this period that I ordered a very cheap banjo via a postorder company Thomann. I believe that my banjo cost less than 100 euros. When it arrived a few days later I was still unable to play it for a week or two, but gradually I finally managed to place my arm over it and after finding out how to tune the thing I started playing it. Within about an hour I had written this song which is about a fictive American bank robber character who after a very successful spree of bank robbery's decided to jump the border to Mexico to evade the bounty hunters who were in hot pursuit of him. After living a life of relative luxury and surrounded by available women in Mexico he is finally confronted by his own conscience and lack of love towards the end of his life which leads him on the road to change his life. Before the month was out I had written a second banjo song with a more serious storyline called Indestructible.
In the meantime I have come to the conclusion that my musical talents should not be pursued on the banjo and perhaps I should just stick to the piano with a bit of guitar.