Full honesty up front. I was at the web premiere of The Wind of Heaven as a video. I wasn’t very moved at first viewing. It could have been the interview around it, who knows. I watched it once or twice after and it didn’t grab me. Today my copy of All The Way arrived so I was afforded the opportunity to sit back and just listen to this more than seven minute journey. I also looked up more information and found this synopsis of the film it (strikingly well) represents:
“The Wind of Heaven is about a veteran that comes back home from Afghanistan and really loses himself, can’t pick up the life he had before he left. Eventually, he gets work on a ranch and he finds that he has kind of a communion with the wild horses and he finds himself through horses.”
In addition, one should know:
“The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears” – Arabian Proverb
So, with both of those in mind, I listened again, without the video. It starts very much in the area of despair, and the chorus arrives and lifts us slightly out of it before the song goes back into the sadness. But again, the chorus “rescues” us. The cycle repeats, and the length of the song gives it time to do so over and over. Thrust back into dark, lifted back out of it. Incredibly lifelike. It took me repeated listens, though, to notice how each time the chorus visits us, it is more uplifting than the previous, and by the end the keyboards are practically giddy before the end.
It is not just a beautiful song, the structure of it has made me really love it.