I didn’t have a treehouse in my backyard growing up, but I did have a special, private perch just outside my bedroom window. It was a 30-foot-tall mast for our TV aerial, and climbing to the top gave me a peek across the neighbouring houses and out towards downtown.
From up there I could see all the way to the CN Tower, my hometown’s altitudinous pride and joy. Due to a combination of my own elevation, the slight slope the city took as it approached the lake, and perhaps my imagination, it felt as if I was up at the same level as the observation deck. As if I was on eye level with whoever happened to be up there at that moment. I imagined that if I were a bird, I could fly in a straight line and say hello to them.
There is a limited number of precious instances in city life when you feel completely alone among millions of people, but being up there was one such instance.
Tor’s 2021 album Oasis Sky takes its name from something similar: the feeling the artist gets in his Vancouver high rise; floating serenely above the city, with a view of the ocean and the mountains. An oasis in the sky.
This song closes the album.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The drum sample is one of my favourites. Originally from a 1974 song called “Sneakin’ in the Back” by Tom Scott and the LA Express, it’s been used by plenty of acts from Massive Attack to Third Eye Blind, but it never gets old.
2. That drum sample gets a bit syncopated at 2:16 in a way that augments the groove.
3. The rising and falling piano line sounds like a bird that decides to take off from the roof of your house to go visit someone in an observation deck far away.
Recommended listening activity:
Scanning the horizon.