What the Heck is "Gotu Kola"?

People often ask me what "Gotu Kola" means and why I have a song with that title. The story is pretty simple.

I heard a song named Pennywort that I thought was really beautiful and it inspired me to write a similar tune of my own. I wanted a name that paid tribute to the original song, so I decided upon Gotu Kola.

Pennywort is a plant, often used in cooking and it has some medicinal properties as well. In the Sinhalese parts of Sri Lanka, pennywort is referred to as gotu kola. It has many other names, but I found the Sinhalese word to be the nicest.

I wrote this song on the piano during an artist's residence in Tottenham, Ontario in 2009.

Here's some more info about the pennywort/gotu kola plant.

Gotu-Kola-Pennywort