Much is said about the state of the arts today; boring, uninspired, domesticated. Much of it riding off the tailcoats of greatness while sneering at it or otherwise mis-portraying that greatness. And it is a good thing too, for it makes our rise that much more exciting, though rockier. The ongoing Pulp Revival is unashamedly vitalistic, Romantic, barbaric and Gothic. How could that be competed with by the nannying, socially anxious, crippled industries around us?
Nevertheless it must be said there are often outlets for such forces in the mainstream - metal being one of the most prominent. Often music seems to be a form of expression less curated and less limited, possibly due to the formlessness of the style and it being more about how it makes you feel than what it’s saying.
One such album requires discussion today. Strange Trails by Lord Huron, an American folk rock band. The tagline is “14 Songs from the Unknown”. I suspect that the album name is derived from Strange Tales, a competitor for the pulp magazine Weird Tales, though I have so far found no proof. Nevertheless this album is full to the brim of Romanticism, horror cosmic and otherwise, and Gothic atmosphere mixed with a very American folky (if I may say so as an Englishman) feel to it.
So, I want to introduce this album to you because we love good art, because I believe this album combines a number of difficult to capture currents in a compelling and moving way, and because I believe such inspiration shall in turn inspire us and help us write better our own stories. To give us ideas. Particularly the Romantic aspects - we do very well certain aspects of pulp but if there was one area I would improve overnight if possible it would be the romance, though off the top of my head Robert Booth incorporates it seamlessly into his stories and Emre Tan has as well in certain areas. Others likely have mention also.
Still they are no Robert W. Chambers - who wrote such powerful short stories with Romance as being central to the themes, without diluting or otherwise taking away from the other themes in his stories, such as the cosmic horror or the supernatural. Often they are far more tragic because of it. I encourage you to read these stories; The Mask, The Yellow Sign, The Demoiselle d'Ys. For something closer to home I also recommend The Necromantic Tale by Clark Ashton Smith, which is a less romantic but still excellent story.
Tangent aside, let us get to the album!
Track No.1 - Love Like Ghosts
It is hard for me to not transcribe the entire lyrics and talk about them, but much like pulp I feel this article ought to be quick and punchy. Besides, I want you to listen to it yourselves and draw your own inspiration.
Yes, I know that love is like ghosts
Oh, few have seen it, but everybody talksThis first line sets up the tragedy inherent in the song. It talks of a fleeting, incorporeal thing and draws a strange parallel between the vitalistic and moving emotion of love with the tragedy and stillness of the grave.
Yes, I know that love is like ghosts
Oh, and what ain't living can never really die
You don't want me, baby, please don't lie
Oh, but if you're leaving, I gotta know whyThis part of the song elaborates on the connection between their love and a ghost - not really dead but not alive either. They had something, but it wasn’t “actual” love, furthering the tragedy. Despite this the singer is all too human and needs an explanation, needs closure, needs to complete his suffering by knowing what was wrong.
Yes I know that love is like ghosts
Oh, and the moonlight, baby, shows you what's real
There ain't language for the things I feel
And if I can't have you, then no one ever will
Oh, if I can't have you, then no one ever willThe singer can’t express himself with proper words but the longing is clear. Despite the consistent sound the lyrics present a newly impassioned man who cannot handle what is occurring. In the darkness of the night something is revealed to him.
I don't feel it till it hurts sometimes
Oh, go on baby, hurt me tonight
I want ours to be an endless song
Baby, in my eyes, you do no wrongThe singer didn’t feel the realness of the love until the pain came. And so he asks for the pain so that he might feel the love, necessary elements of a true tragedy. The line after perhaps provides clarification for the verse before - if he can’t have her then no-one else will, and this moment of pain and love will be frozen in time, endless. So perhaps ghosts and love are closer together than one might initially think.
Now there is a lot more to the song, the connections between the intro and the outro and between singing, ghosts, and love that I will not elaborate on here. Suffice to say this song introduces romance and the Gothic right off the bat.
Track No.2 - Until The Night Turns
I had a vision tonight that the world was ending
Yeah, the sky was falling and time was bending
I watched the heavens collide right before my eyesStraight in with the cosmic.
What if the world dies with the sunrise?
Baby, it's all right— we'll be up all night
What if we're unmade when the stars fade?
Keep me going till the night turns into the dayThe powerful fatalism of cosmicism is summoned and there is a high-energy feel despite that.
I had a visitor come from the great beyond
And telling me our time that the world is done
And to watch for a sign in the midnight skyThe pulp elements really come through, the communication with an unfathomable power, the end of the world and the signs given, all backed with a fast tempo and an energetic sound. There is no slow tragedy here but the acceptance of moving towards the dangerous and apocalyptic at full speed.
We wait for the sunrise
We watch as the world dies
We howl in the moonlight
When the World Ender comes, baby, don't close your eyesMore mentions of the moonlight, a recurring motif. Mention of the World Ender, something that will become relevant later. This is almost inter-textuality (between songs) which is a very common pulp theme. And then more fatalism - don’t close your eyes when face to face with your doom.
I got a helluva view for the end of the world
I've got a bottle of booze and a beautiful girl
If I'm a-goin' to die, I'm gonna go in styleMore making the most of your last night, a powerful vital spirit in the face of apocalypse and then the theme of dying well. This verse in particular reminds me of a story called Demure Ash by our own A. R. Giesen. Really the whole song, with the vision at the start also, feels like an alternate version of that story with a different protagonist and story beat. I did ask him if he’d ever listened to the song, but he’d never even heard of the artist. Pulpy convergence at it’s finest!
Yeah, we going till the night turns into the day
Yeah, we going till the night turns into the day
Yeah, we going till the night turns into the day
Yeah, we keep it going till the night turns into the dayAnd the outro reaffirms the high energy spirit in the face of destruction.
Track No.3 - Dead Man’s Hand
I really love this track. It feels more like a condensed short story than an actual song; a random chance encounter with the supernatural and two interesting characters that we don’t get enough of. I could create endless stories based off either of the two characters mentioned in the song - the stranger who gives a dead man a hand or the dead man who decides to keep living. Or perhaps it’s the story of a traveler who starts to hallucinate due to sleep deprivation. The unreliable narrator - another pulp staple!
Yellow lines in the dead of the night
Oh, I was heading back out west
Trying to keep my eyes open wide
I'd gone days without any restSaw him lying in the road looking bad
About 20 yards ahead
You come back from a trip to the East
But you don't come back from the deadSure as hell, he was dead as they come
And he was already starting to smell
Just a kid with his hair slicked back
And a knife tucked into his beltWas he unforgiven or just tired of living, a life
That never felt like his?
Though I was was worn and weary, I thought I'd bury him
And lay his soul to rest out in the desert nightI laid him down in a grave in the sand
And he grabbed my arm with his dead man's hand
He said: "I know I'm dead, but I don't wanna lie
In a grave out here where the coyotes cryI stared right into the endless void
And I ain't going back if I got any choice
I know how to live, I don't know how to die
And there ain't no thrills in the afterlifeSo lift me up out of here, my friend
And I'll wander the night till the ages end”
Lit by the moon, he walked through the sand
And he waved goodbye with his dead man's handDecided to just transcribe the whole thing. Now that’s flash fiction par excellence! Much of the same themes as before, facing death and living on-wards despite it, the two characters are both adventurers of some kind, and more moonlight. The dead young man has a knife in his belt conveying that he’s dangerous and his dialogue shows he’s so life-affirming he outright rejects death. Dangerous and life affirming is a great pulp combo.
Aesthetically somewhat similar to Dune Lord’s Dreaming by Illuminatus. A dead man wandering the desert. Again one wonders about the pulp convergence.
Track No.4 - Hurricane (Johnnie’s Theme)
For whatever reason, this one felt like the most American track on this album. I haven’t made much discussion about the Americanism which I claimed typified these songs earlier but that is because for me it is so hard to pin down exactly. Nevertheless I know it is there, I can feel it in far more than sound and rhythm. It is not overt but it is ever-present.
I get a thrill outta playing with fire
'Cause you hold your life when you hold that flame
I get a kick outta thunder and lightning
And tearing through the night hollering your nameI get a laugh outta starin' at darkness
And wondering why people live in the light
I drive fast and I rumble the hardest
I don't feel alive if I ain't in the fightHigh energy rough and tumble atmosphere. People forget the brutality of the American rough and tumble, a veritable martial art - two men went down, often for the honour of their village, their families, or themselves and it wasn’t stopped until someone had been viciously mutilated either by hand or tooth.
It is a shame - I truly believe such barbarity leads directly to an equally high culture, at least in the hands of the White man. More than likely it did, the moon was reached after all, among any other number of achievements, though my instincts tell me that the country of routine eye-gouging and ear-tearing ought to have seen many Mozarts. Perhaps they still might.
Still, idle musings aside, I believe a small essence of that brutality is brought to the fore in these lyrics, ripped out of time and performed for the world. It is not detracted by the romance of the song; on the contrary there can be a brutality to romance, a raw, empowering intoxication that the artist, caught up in it, becomes a force of nature and more than man.
I can't sleep when there's something to do
You spend your whole life dreaming and you wake up dead
It's a long night, can I spend it with you?
'Cause you're oh-so-pretty when you stand on the edgeOh little darlin', don't you look charming
Here in the eye of a hurricane
Real or imagined— what does it matter?
Oh, come inside, can I get you to stay?I can’t sleep when there’s something to do - the man is consumed by obsession, empowered by it. Who here has not felt that same pull, even craved it?
The romance is further developed. The nature of the love is shown - she is accompanied at every step by the whirling winds and he the lightning. She is more than mere human, she is elemental and so is he in turn, or at least on the edge of it.
What is life?
Only visions
When I die
I'm coming right on back for youEven the finality of death can’t stop him and his pull towards the object of his affections. Another recurring theme.
Track No.5 - La Belle Fleur Savage
Now the pulpy supernatural romance gets heavy.
What you're looking for won't be found easily
It grows upon the mountain in a sacred place
Up beyond the clouds, in ancient ground, so they say
And many men have died trekking up that wayAll of this inspires in man the spirit of adventure. It taunts them, challenges them to prove that their fathers did beget them. This is always the case. Do not try to give me outliers, for those are not men but automatons of which you speak! There is no soul and so there is no man!
But what is it I’m looking for then, you ask?
Once he's gazed upon her, a man is forever changed
The bravest men return with darkened hearts and phantom pain
Ages come and go, but her life goes on the same
She lives to see the sun and feel the wind and drink the rainWhat else but a woman? A woman who destroys men with just her visage, a woman who no man can walk away from untouched. But what is she? Immortal and enraptured with life, she lives to experience the elements.
Her colors change to mark the passing of the days
No Earthly sight can match the beauty she displays
And when I die I want her lying by my side
In my grave, in my graveOnce again the singer is possessive of her unto death. He needs her more than life, this immortal being. Do all men who see her feel such potent longing?
I'm meant to find the place where all good things begin
To smell her scent and watch her dancing in the wind
And when I die I want her lying by my side
In my grave, in my graveAgain her love of life powers through. Once more he reiterates that single minded passion.
I'd give it all to love that girl
I'll be the one to pluck that fleurThere is nothing he won’t do, no ends of the Earth he won’t go to. Why? For the same reason most young men would, knowing the risks. To overcome such limitations, to be the one that gets such a woman, such a treasure. He tells himself, as all men must, that he will succeed where others have failed.
Listening to this song I’m reminded me an older Gothic tale, Rappaccini's Daughter, wherein a young man tries to court a poisonous maiden in a garden of the most dangerous flowers known to mankind. In order to do this he becomes poisonous himself in the process. He can’t handle it and gives her an antidote that ends up killing her - perhaps to get such a woman as the La Belle Fleur Savage a man must be like her, immortal and elemental. In contrast to the protagonist of Rappaccini’s Daughter this much can be said about the singer; he wants La Belle Fleur Savage for what she is.
Track No.6 - Fool For Love
This next song perhaps has an answer to a lot of the unanswered questions in these songs; the protagonist is a fool for love.
I’m leaving this place behind and I’m heading out on the road tonight
I’m off for the hinterlands way up north where the tall trees stand
Before I commence my ride, I'm asking Lily to be my bride
I know there's another man, but he ain't gonna delay my plansI know she's gonna be my wife
Gonna fall in love, I'm gonna live my life with her
You know, I bet he's not so tough
Ain't afraid of him 'cause I'm a fool for loveI come for to find Big Jim, well, here I am and I guess you’re him
I see how you got your name, you're tall as hell and broad as a train
They say you’re a hard-worn man, the baddest guy in the whole wide land
Well, I'm not afraid to fight, let's step outside and I'll show you whyI'm hummin' like a revved-up truck
Never mind the odds, I'm gonna try my luck with her
Just tell me when you've had enough
I'm dangerous 'cause I'm a fool for loveYou know, you don't hit half-bad
Oh, but I'm gonna lay you to ground tonight
Just wait until I catch my breath
Gonna send you on to an early deathI lie in the drifting snow, bleeding out as it covers me, oh
If spring comes before I’m found, just throw my bones in a hole in the ground
I lost friends along my way, I knew I’d meet 'em eventually
No, I’m not afraid to die, I’m just mad I left Big Jim aliveI know I should have never looked back
But you ain’t gonna win a woman’s heart like that
I never should have called his bluff
I was born to lose 'cause I’m a fool for loveI stare into the endless sky
And the sorry tale of my life goes by
I drift into the great unknown
I really don’t know where I’m goin'I stare into the endless sky
And the sorry tale of my life goes by
I drift into the great unknown
I really don’t know where I’m goin'Another where I had to transcribe the whole thing - it’s as much a story as a song and I couldn’t simply pick certain parts out. Again, excellent flash fiction. The protagonist here is really a Romantic hero, a tragic figure who knows off the bat his fatal flaw. He’s gambling against fate and he loses. Again there’s intertextuality - the characters of Lily and Big Jim are not made up for this song - as some might have picked up on - but characters from a ballad by Bob Dylan “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”. It’s interesting the recurring mention of the fool; with Big Jim as the King of Diamonds against the Jack of Hearts being the tone of the original, perhaps Lord Huron is working with a different deck? - Tarot cards instead of playing ones. More esoteric, more arcane. More bundled up with fate than gambling.
The fool in tarot represents the start of an adventure and acting recklessly. As with all the other songs there is this focus on death, in this case the main character is actually experiencing it. He treats it with no huge dramatics but instead as if heading on just another adventure. The tarot card of death can mean a big change in someones life rather than someone actually dying - perhaps it is the same in this work.
Track No.7 - The World Ender
So we finally meet the World Ender mentioned in the second track. Bring on the cosmic horror, bring on the strange entities!
I had a name, but they took it from me
I was the man that I wanted to be
I had a place where I lay my head
They burnt it to the ground and the sky turned redI had a life and a place in the world
I had a sweet-talkin’ wife and a beautiful girl
I know I’m never gonna see 'em again
Gonna tear the world up until I have my revengeAhh and there’s another famous pulp archetype mixed in with the eldritch. The avenging angel. A man wronged, back to hunt and bring to justice those that harmed him.
They took my life, but it isn’t the end
They put me in the ground, but I’m back from the deadAnd here the supernatural.
You'll hear me howl by the light of the moon
That's how you'll know that I'm coming for you
Gonna find you alone in the dark of night
When the World Ender comes, better run for your lifeI’ll never bleed and I won’t ever age
I’ll never feel the embrace of the grave
The fair and the brave and the good must die
I seen the other side of living, I know heaven's a lie
I’ll tear through the night and I'll raise some hell
Cause I'm the World Ender, baby, and I'm back from the deadAnd so a man is back through otherworldly means with claims of knowing what’s beyond death and here to end the world. That he howls and can be ran from for a time suggests his form may not have changed too much, but that he cannot die and has been given the title of World Ender suggests he is very different from your average human. Drawing on the second track it appears that the World Ender’s appearance causes time to bend and heavens to collide so we can assume he is now something nightmarish of unbelievable power.
I was six feet down, but something raised me up
Sent back for to lift my curse
I’m gonna get me a taste of some chaos first
Untied, gonna get little wildThis snippet of a verse elaborates on another motif - the cursed. Nothing suits a cursed hero so well as pulp, and explains how he got back but not why. In typical pulp fashion when one question is answered ten more are raised. This song also reaches the apex of what many songs have been hinting at - a will and vitality that even death cannot stop. In this case death is not only impotent but completely disregarded. Instead of stopping him, death has made him far more powerful and vitally charged.
Track No.8 - Meet Me In The Woods
This song takes a downturn from the high-energy, blood-rushing frenzy of the coming of the World Ender, however it continues the stories of the occult quite nicely.
I took a little journey to the unknown
And I come back changed, I can feel it in my bones
I fucked with the forces that our eyes can't see
Now the darkness got a hold on me
Oh, the darkness got a hold on meIt tells of a man experimenting with things that he couldn’t comprehend and has been forever changed. One could be forgiven for expecting a reference to Miskatonic University or the dreaded Necronomicon. The man is an adventurer into the academic and the occult and lives to tell the tale - though now under the compulsion of a vague something.
I have seen what the darkness does
Say goodbye to who I was
I ain't never been away so long
Don't look back, them days are goneFollow me into the endless night
I can bring your fears to light
Show me yours and I'll show you mine
Meet me in the woods tonightMore vague references of a darkness, implications that we don’t want to know. Yet the protagonist exhorts us to join him in the endless night, to meet him in the darkness of the woods. Is this offer generously given or done under the will of the darkness? Either way, the instinct is within us to want to know more. At what cost? As they say, curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back. Unless… perhaps this time it wasn’t satisfaction that brought it back but something far more terrifying?
Track No.9 - The Yawning Grave
This one is much slower, giving off a sense of timelessness and tragedy, mirrored by the lyrics.
I know the rain like the clouds know the sky
I speak to birds and tell them where to fly
I sing the songs that you hear on the breeze
I write the names of the rocks and the treesI tried to warn you when you were a child
I told you not to get lost in the wild
I sent you omens and all kinds of signs
I taught you melodies, poems, and rhymesAn esteemed yet extremely subtle expert of the occult laments his failings as a mentor. The person he was teaching - possibly in person or possibly through subtle methods - has ignored his repeated warnings not to stray too far.
Oh, you fool, there are rules, I am coming for you
(You can run but you can't escape)
Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins
(You will open the yawning grave)And now he must be dealt with. Which rules have been broken are unclear but the violation of natural law has not been an uncommon theme throughout the album. Perhaps he is talking to the protagonist of the previous track? The mention of darkness would suggest that. It’s also possible that that same protagonist was singing to the protagonist of this song. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine” could suggest a disciple squaring up to his old mentor thinking that his newfound hidden secrets find him equipped to do so.
Despite that the mentor seems confident that he is more powerful and that the former student will be used to some occult effect - whatever the yawning grave is. More intertextuality, the yawning grave is a reference to a poem by Lord Byron, famous Romantic. Whatever there is to be said about his personal life his works were extremely powerful and inspired the likes of such life-affirming philosophers as Nietzsche. The poem in question is called “Answer To A Beautiful Poem, Entitled ‘The Common Lot’” which has this verse:
The lustre of a beauty’s eye
Assumes the ghastly stare of death;
The fair, the brave, the good must die,
And sink the yawning grave beneathAnother familiar line appears - the fair, the brave, the good must die also appears in The World Ender. So perhaps the protagonist is talking to him, or that the World Ender is one of the evil things brought by the darkness. Regardless the poem is excellent and is essential to understanding the soul of this work. It should be read posthaste!
Track No.10 - Frozen Pines
This track describes a man in a strange place who’s companions have all disappeared.
Deep into the night
With the moonlight as my guide
I will wander through the pines
And make my way to nature's shrinesAnd I look up to the sky
And I know you're still alive
But I wonder where you are
I call your name into the darkMoonlight once more and darkness again. The line about nature’s shrines suggests a different source of power than the occult ones we’ve been seeing up ‘til now but the line about the dark suggests otherwise.
I wake up in the morning, oh, and I don't know where I've been
All alone on a mountainside and huddled in the windAnd it feels like I've been away for an era
But nothing has changed at all
And it feels like I've been with you
But, oh, what did you you do and where have you gone?The singer is seemingly losing sanity, not in touch with their own memories and trapped and alone in a harsh climate.
There was no one else in sight
Just the endless frozen pines
But I wonder how they know
'Cause they don't die, if they don't growWandering about in a sea of frozen pines. Are they frozen from the temperature or are they frozen in time? And could these be the woods an earlier singer was using as a meeting spot?
I am ready to follow you even though I don't know where
I've been waiting the night until you decide to take me thereSeems like it is. Until then they’ll be waiting, but who knows how long that will take? Another tragedy.
Track No.11 - Cursed
In which a man is bound completely by a woman. The romance returns and so do the paroxysms of emotion.
What I remember the most is hollering her name
And the sirens wail as we ran like hell down a strange trailNice reference to the title. Also presents a similar scene to Hurricane (Johnnie’s Theme) - hollering her name and a girl who likes to live dangerously.
Lots of booze and her kiss, these are drugs that do not mix
I was under her spell and today I feel like hell
She got me going, I guess, but who knew love would be like this?The love is not something stable, it’s something intoxicating and powerful and like alcohol leaves you with a heavy hangover.
What kind of magic is this? I was doomed by our first kiss
Just a pawn in her game, I've done things that have no name
And she'll make me do worse, if the law doesn't get me first
She has turned my heart black and I know I can't turn backThere are runes on my skin, they appear when she walks in
I am bound by her spell, I am chained to do her will
I'm a goner, I guess, who knew love was gonna be like this?
She has cloaked me in black and there ain't no turning backHe is compelled by her, controlled by her mystique and her love. It reminds me of the The Necromantic Tale by Clark Ashton Smith mentioned earlier, where he is tempted and enraptured by a woman who brings him down with her - taking on the law and common morality.
It’s possible that again we have an unreliable narrator and that the magic he speaks of is completely false, or it is possible it is completely true. Regardless, she’s something he can’t handle but can’t leave.
I don't know how to walk out of this deal
The spell she cast on me is real
I don't know how to right the wrongs I've done
She bends the wills of men for fun
I don't know how to take my own life back
Everything she touches turns to black
I don't know how to fight what I can't see
That girl has laid a curse on me
Track No.12 - Way Out There
I'm a long way from the one that I loved
I've been tending old flames, lamenting what was
Drifting in a land that time forgot
If you think that I've changed, you know me not
I belong bodily to the earth
I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first
I been unraveling since my birth
Gonna wander out there and see what I'm worthWho here can’t relate to that? A man of a different age gone wandering.
Follow me way out there
There's no road that will lead us back
When you follow the strange trails
They will take you to who knows where
If I found a way to stay with you tonight
It would only make me late, for a date I can't escapeOnce more elaborating on the title. Something else we can relate to; following strange tales and ending up who knows where. How else did we get here?
Again I have to mention the fatalistic outlook that reverberates throughout this album. I really do think it’s an absolutely powerful undercurrent and deserves a return to the psyche through Pulp Revival. I shall write an article on how Lovecraft’s cosmicism is a return to fatalism and Nietzsche’s tragic disposition but for now this music shall have to suffice!
Track No.13 - Louisa
More death and love - what more could you need?
Good for nothing is the name they'll remember me by
Done nothin' with my life for no one, I'm just waitin' to die
I turned my back on the world
You know I'd given up on livin' til I met you girlThen you came into my life with come hither in your eyes
Pulling me outta the grave what a nice surprise
I die when our nights end, but I only stay dead til I see you againA man who may as well be dead re-energised by his need for this woman. He isn’t living when he’s not with her, she alters his state as powerfully as the contrast between life and death. Who has ever felt so moved? Who doesn’t want to be? He tells us what we already know; to starve can feel good. To want for something deeply can raise the spirit, to be moved from the passive state of contentment - or in the singers case stagnation and immobility - into the active state of the predator, the man who chases what he wants because he wants. There are creatures alive who have not felt this state - they cannot know the exultation of my soul.
To convey such things through art, to raise a man up so - who can claim this is not the Romantic impulse? Nobility waiting in the darkness of the soul, fangs bared, ready for the spark that sets alight the roaring flame - it is intoxicating.
I'll give you what you wanna have
I'll take you where you wanna go
I'm the only man you'll ever need, girl, and now you know
I'll write your name on my skin, as a promise that we'll never be apart againLike the protagonists in Cursed and La Belle Fleur Savage he is marked permanently by her and feels that strong sense of possession and belonging.
I turned my back on the world
I wasn't always like this, girl
Do you know what loneliness does to a man?
Turn him into the walking dead
I may have died but your lovin' raised meI feel alive when I'm with you, baby
So tell me that I won't ever be lonely again
Don't wanna die I wanna wander the world with you
And no one else for the rest of my days on this earthThis isn’t just a fleeting feeling, a temporary moment of romance. He wants her eternally - whatever that might mean. Again the spirit of adventure permeates. This is another high energy song - when I feel dead it rises me up!
Track No.14 - The Night We Met
This album ends on a melancholy note.
I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Oh, take me back to the night we metWhen the night was full of terrors
And your eyes were filled with tears
When you had not touched me yet
Oh, take me back to the night we metThe protagonist longs for a return to a time when he had her fully. Piece by piece he has lost her but the ghost lingers on and he cannot move forward. He wants to return to a time of terror and sadness where he did not have the object of his affections. A time of pain and wanting - why? To feel those emotions again, at their peak. This album ends on desperation to return, maybe wanting the listener to go through the album again, to feel those heights.
Final Words
This album is a great source of pulp material. Romance, violence, tragedy, fatalism, Gothicism, the supernatural and occult, cosmic horror, passion. It’s nice to know it’s still being made and with new mediums. Any one of these stories in song format, developed into a proper short story would easily be published by one of our guys.
Furthermore the vague connections between each of them serves to further develop the universe they’re set in. In this way the lot of them together both stand alone and are part of a wider continuum of mysticism. People love this. Much of the same themes were explored throughout but it still felt fresh and interesting.
Now I must clarify something. This was not an article but an ambush! I have thrust upon you songs, poems, and short stories to develop your romantic edge! Another one here for you; Byron, When I Roved a Young Highlander! You have seen it all now, you have no excuse not to create!
I say this only half in jest, I know of some Bizarchives contributors that are already developing stories of romance. Grasping the power of attraction and the paroxysms of love can be difficult but it’s well worth it! I’m looking forward to them!