Northern Lights is an original instrumental piece by Ricky Tims that was inspired by a melody that crept into his dream. Ricky admits that music from dreams had never been remembered upon awaking. However, in this case the motifs were so strong that when he woke, went straight to the studio and began putting the composition together. It was finished in twelve hours. Read Ricky's comments about it below in the Production Notes.

There are no lyrics for Northern Lights.

Composition and arrangement by Ricky Tims, published by Ricky Tims Music/BMI  ©2009 All Rights Reserved.

Ricky plays: piano, toy piano, keyboards, hand percussion, and trumpet.

Drum kit: Bob Mater

Duduk: Albert Vardanyan

Acoustic Guitar: Mark Hornsby

Strings
Violins: David Davidson, David Angell, Pamela Sixfin, Connie Ellisor, Mary Katherine Vanosdale, and Karen Winklemann. 
Violas: Jim Grosjean, Monisa Angell, Betsy Lamb. 
Cellos: John Catchings and Anthony La Marchina. 
Bass: Jack Jezioro

Northern Lights was born from a dream. It is the only song I've ever dreamed, woke up, and made real. The main motif was so strong, and I was so inspired by it, that when I awoke (at about 6am) I went straight to my recording studio and began putting it together. By midnight, the composition was complete. At the time there was no title and no visual inspiration. As I listened to the finished result of my demo I began to envision the universe - space - and finally swirling dancing lights. This naturally led to me naming it Northern Lights. Having seen the northern lights on a trip to Fairbanks, Alaska in 2004 the music seemed to fit the magic of the astral phenomenon. 

In my previous CD, Sacred Age, I utilized a duduk on Trail of Tears. The Armenian duduk is the oldest known reed instrument dating back over 2000 years. I love the ancient, haunting, hollow, English horn-like sound so much that I chose to use it again on two songs on this project - Northern Lights and All is Well. There are very few duduk players in the U.S. but fortunately Albert Vardanyan lives in California and he is a great session player. His performances have been featured on many movie soundtracks. 

Apparently the string arrangements that I composed for this song were more intricate and complex than usual. David Davidson, the leader on the string session in Nashville approached me when we took a break while recording this piece. He simply said, "This is hard!" However, everyone enjoyed the challenge and I give the players, some of the best in the world, an A+ on knocking it out of the ballpark.