Samba Pa Ti

Samba Pa Ti is a song that I wrote when we came back from Europe the very first time. I was up in my room looking out my window because I heard this sound. This cat blew a couple of notes on the saxophone in the back of the alley. And when I looked out, he was trying to stay up on his feet. It looked like the whole world was moving around him. And he was trying to decide between putting his saxophone in his mouth and putting the bottle of booze from his back pocket into his mouth. And I thought "he is a prisoner." He didn't know what to put in his mouth next - the horn or the bottle of booze, you know. And it just hit me. It really broke me down because he looked like all of us at one time or another. And for some reason, i just heard these lyrics, "through every step in life you find freedom from within." And then I heard the melody. It was one of the first songs that I felt really free, free enough to forget about anything. You just let it flow through you. And even though it's very simple, there's still a lot of emotion in it.