The Recording Process:

First Unit Production and Recording:
Billy Brown: Keyboards, programming
Recorded at Outpost Productions, New York January,
1998 engineered by Billy Brown

Second Unit Production and Recording:
Tony Garone - vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards
Recorded, engineered and mixed at Cow Pilot Studios, Arizona by Tony Garone

Billy sent me an ADAT with a collection of music he had done with an open invitation to use whatever I wanted for Gilgamesh. On the tape were several complete instrumental songs and some drum patterns. When I heard "Mystics" (the original title of this song), the vocal melody immediately popped into my head. I knew it would be perfect music for this song. So I simply wrote the lyric and added my vocal, acoustic guitar and some additional keyboards and viola!

​

​

What is this song about?

Gilgamesh is devastated by the death of Enkidu, who is stricken with some type of illness after being chosen to die by the gods for killing Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh erects a monument to Enkidu with the finest gold and gems and all of Uruk mourns him. This part of the Epic is the turning point for Gilgamesh in that he begins to question his mortality by experiencing devastating grief at the death of Enkidu.

In part he is more concerned about his own demise than that of his friend and because of this decides to journey to the Far Away, a place where the legendary Utnapishtim (Sumerian Ziasudra) lived. Utnapishtim was a mortal who was given eternal life by Enlil (the sky god). Gilgamesh was intent on finding out how this transpired in an attempt to achieve the same for himself.

Before he departed, he once again sought council of his mother Ninsun. He asked her why he (being one third human and two thirds divine) should perish as a mortal. She sadly explained to him that because he was one third human he was destined to live and die within the lifespan of a mortal. Nevertheless, Gilgamesh took off on his perilous journey to the Far Away to meet Utnapishtim and find out how it was that he escaped the fate of mortals.