Album: Deep Purple
An original idea of ian's, who is heard playing drums, timbales, maracas and cowbell. Jon is playing claves. The percussion instruments were tracked on afterwards of course. The song is about one of jon's nightmares. Nicky's bass line is a gas.
Jon Lord said this about the song in April 1996:
The song was something to do with a nightmare I'd had and the lyrics as I wrote them were:
Chasing shadows, over my walls
with myself hardly sleeping
Dwarfs and giants, twenty feet tall
fill the room with their creeping
Sounds of breathing sharpen my ears
then they fade into nothing
Someone's laughter out in the street
fills the night with their loving
I feel the ice in my head
Running its hands through my bed
Not even dreaming I seem to be dead
Colours of yellow and colours of red
All I'm asking some secret voice
is to lead me to darkness
Jon forgot the two last lines:
I'm so tired, dawn never comes
I just hide in the shadows