paul roland - re-animator (2004)

reanimator

Even now I shudder to recall how far and fast from grace that I could fall
A prey to pride, like Lucifer, his unwitting servitor
as I sought the sacred mysteries of life
from grave to gallows with the needle and the knife.

Insensible to fear and to my friends I pursued my passion to its dreadful end
Until one unholy night by heaven’s unforgiving light
I beheld the creature born under the knife.
An abomination, a mockery of life.

As the fluid coursed up through its veins, the vital signs returning once again
it opened one dull vacant eye, parted parchment lips and cried
and tried in vain convulsions to control
cried, “You and I are men without a soul.”

Chords:
Verse: Am Em x 2 + F Am F Dm
Chorus: Am Em M8: F Em F Em

I read H P Lovecraft’s story many times to find the key phrases and archaic expressions that would add authenticity to this song. Frequently the lyrics for the funny songs come pouring out faster than I can write them down while the serious ones can take quite a lot of ‘research’ and crafting until I get them right. I remember that this was a particularly tough song to crack, but I was very satisfied with the result. By the time I came to record the ‘Re-Animator’ album I felt that I wanted to make an album that was more than just another collection of songs, but finding 12 songs that all had suitable music proved impossible so I settled for an album with 4 songs based on Lovecraft stories or characters plus one based on Poe (‘Valdemar’) and the remainder provided the aperitif, so to speak.

chain gang

We’re breaking rocks in the midday sun
We sweat ‘n’ strain till our work is done
Bound at the ankle by a ball and chain
a hammer in our hand and sin’s its name.

Bitter is the harvest that the sinner sows
I’m going down Moses and I’m going down slow
I looked over Jordan and what did I see
A band of angels saying ‘set the boy free’.

But Satan don’t sleep nor his strong right hand
our backs bear his mark, it’s the devil’s brand,
And we say, ‘hey Satan won’t you cut some slack?’
But he says ‘sorry boys’ and the whip goes crack.

Satan he walks just like a man
and he’ll take you down if you give him your hand
Have mercy on me, can’t you hear me lord,
Send down your angel with the flaming sword.

Up in the morning when the black cock crows
Swing that pick and haul that load.

The road we’re laying is long and straight
every day leads us further from heaven’s gate
and we say, “hey Satan, won’t you cut some slack?”
But the whip goes crack right across our backs.

Chords:
Verse: Am F Em
Chorus: C G Am M8 E Am

I read the lyrics to some old gospel songs to find the evocative phrases that gave this lyric the authentic flavour. It’s a rare writer who can rely entirely on their own imagination and it really pays off to do a little ‘research’.
I almost lost this song having forgotten about it then one day I found a rough home demo in an old box of cassettes. This was the last album that I had someone else play keyboards. After ‘Re-Animator’ I felt confident enough to play all the keyboard parts myself and as the quality of the samples improved, it meant I could add strings, woodwind, retro organ and even 60s guitar sounds to my own records.

pan

taliesin

Although I could now play rudimentary but effective parts on most songs, I always got a buzz when an exceptional musician added their own personality to one of my tracks. On ‘Taliesin’ I was privileged to have Geoffrey Richardson from Caravan play violin (he also played on ‘Assassins/Cthulhu’ and the bonus track ‘Death of A Clown’) while Caravan’s James Leverton played bass (a man who had also jammed with Hendrix and played with one of my favourite singers Steve Marriott)

valdemar

The source for this song was Poe’s ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’ and specifically the film adaptation in Roger Corman’s ‘Tales of Terror’ (1962) though I couldn’t resist bringing in the Necronomicon just to allude to Lovecraft’s unseen presence.

swamp girl

Swamp girl she give me fever
Swamp girl can’t ever leave her
She’s as mean as a bayou alligator
There’s no man alive seen fit to tame her

Swamp girl she making hoodoo
Swamp girl some kind of voodoo

Swamp girl she going hogwild
Swamp girl she’s a real wild child

She is skinning snakes and alligator
There’s no man alive seen fit to tame her
What you cooking girl, a mess of gumbo?
Messing with my head you work your mojo.

assassins

Allah abides in every being
The light of dawn, the dusk of evening
Blessed is the all and knowing, Allah.

His is the glory without ending
His Will is firm it is unbending
Our sacrifice it is our blessing,
Hassan I Shabba we’re angels of death for Allah

We renounce all earthly treasures
We will taste the fruits of pleasure
His splendour without measure, Allah

I was noodling about on the guitar in the studio waiting for someone to tune up or something and this simple but exotic little phrase popped out, so I made something of it there and then and we recorded it.

charles dexter ward

My name it is Charles Dexter Ward
I am a man of singular tastes
Exquisite sin is etched in my face

My name it is Charles Dexter Ward
I suffer, I’m told, from a rare malady
I have declined to age gracefully

My name it is Charles Dexter Ward
These thoughts are not mine, they’re alien to me
Another, I fear, has possession of me.

When I released this on the Italian prog/metal label Black Widow this was the opening track, but when I had the chance to revise the running order for the German release, I moved the title track to the front to give it a more dramatic opening. I was particularly pleased with the drum pattern that Simon Jeffrey came up with for this song. He was always good at suggesting rhythms and patterns that made the songs come to life. And on the next album he suggested adding a passing chord in ‘Edgar Allen Poe’ that the song really needed.

arkham

The years they’ve wrought a change in me. I’m not the man I used to be
I can’t go back to Arkham
I sense a vague and lurking fear, a dank unwholesome atmosphere
I should return to Arkham

And still it calls to me

A clammy chill pervades the air. Strangers are not welcome there
But I won’t speak ill of Arkham

Wake me from my dreamless sleep

Arkham’s soul is sick with sin,
the sullen houses brooding on the grim, dark crimes of Arkham
Fearful faces turn away and blinds are drawn at close of day
When I return to Arkham

Among the churchyard’s mouldering stones I recognise a name – my own
I have come home to Arkham.

Chords:
Verse: Bm sus G Bm
Chorus Dm F C G M8 Em Bm A

I needed another song for the album after we had finished recording it and an acoustic track was particularly welcome. I wrote the words to this one very quickly on a glorious summer day while lying on the lawn with my young son Michael sitting on my back reading. Evidently you don’t always need to be in a dark cobwebbed crypt to write ghost stories.

cthullu

In the ruins of a sunken city great Cthullu he waits
In the sunken cyclopean city great Cthullu he wakes
In dreams I haunt the spectral city and its great cathedrals of stone
Gliding soundless through vast vaulted chambers I come before his dark throne

We will worship a graven image, a winged beast from the skies
And call upon great Cthullu, spread your wings and arise

The sun dimmed and died, stars closed their eyes
And as prophesied we took to the skies.
And if we should travel far, way out far beyond the stars…

When wickedness thrives offending thine eyes as prophesied we’ll take to the skies.

It is important to me that I do justice, as we say, to the original author of any story or film that inspires me and not merely namedrop a character or place and hope that it will ‘carry’ the song which is something I feel I wasn’t able to do when I was younger (‘Captain Blood’ being one particularly disappointing example as far as the lyric goes). Dropping a few names or key words is never enough to evoke the atmosphere of the story or the literary quality of the writer’s style in my opinion. And that is one thing that I try to do to distinguish my lyrics from the kind of ‘horror rock’ that gives heavy metal a bad name. This was particularly important to me when seeking to recreate the Edwardian world of H G Wells who I admired as much for the choice of his language as for the content of his stories and I would say the same for Lovecraft.
Although there isn’t much to this song (by which I mean it wouldn’t charm anyone if played on an acoustic guitar), the arrangement, instrumentation and production make it one of the most pleasing tracks I have recorded, at least they do for me. I remember being insistent that the little bass phrase at the end was added as I heard it as a track rather than a song and I wanted to ‘fix’ every element, so it was just right. I’m sure the presence of the mellotron had much to do with it.

paul roland - nevermore (2009)

edgar allen poe

There is something about this track that I am particularly fond of, though I rarely listen to my own albums after I’ve released them. The ‘trick’, if I can call it that, is to get the balance right between appealing ‘pop-rock’ and a hint of the supernatural in the lyric. Anything too explicit will suffocate the music and anything too flippant will make it sound like a novelty song of the kind recorded by Screaming Lord Sutch or something by someone who likes horror movies but can’t capture the essence of what makes them so appealing.

captain nemo

The Nautilus she sails upon the morning tide
A leviathan of the seas with gleaming sides
Captain Nemo stands, the wheel under his hand
And issues the command ‘full steam ahead’.
“Gentlemen”, he says, as if taking to the stage
“May I present the wonder of the age”.
Addressing us as one while leaning on the rail
He declares the age of sail is all but dead

In the belly of the beast the heaving pistons pound
We are underway and outward bound.

Captain Nemo says, “And so it seems my friends
For now at least, our voyage is at an end
I will leave the world to its own affairs
The sea it is my realm and they have theirs.”

Chords:
Verse: D Am C Em + F Am
Chorus: Bm A Em G

I really struggled to find the right subject for this song and worked all through the night on a lyric about Marshall Ney, one of Napoleon’s generals who was said to have retired to live a quiet life as a schoolmaster. But by dawn I had to admit that while the verses worked, they were nothing special and that subject would have to be set aside for another song. And then something came into my mind to remind me of Jules Verne’s ’20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ and I knew I had the perfect subject for this wistful melancholic music.

the wreck of the nautilus

I hope I won’t be spoiling the effect by revealing that this song was originally called ‘The Wreck of the Elizabeth Dane’ (the same ship that was crewed by the leprous ghosts in John Carpenter’s ‘The Fog’) and that I only changed the title (and therewith the context) by pairing it with ‘Captain Nemo’ and writing an instrumental interlude in collaboration with Nico Steckelberg) that brought the three pieces together to comprise a short suite.
That interlude was my first serious attempt at writing cinematic scenes. I provided the chord sequence and gave Nico some guidelines and left him to create the track which was greatly enhanced by sea siren Joran of German fantasy folk band Elane.

leatherface

Among cult horror fans it may be sacrilege to say so, but I prefer the glossy southern swamp look of the 2003 remake of ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. I also found the film an absolute hoot and just had to write this song with my tongue firmly in my cheek. I love horror movies, but I couldn’t take this or ‘The Exorcist’ seriously.

the great deceiver

Contrary to what someone assumed this is not about the Devil, but the medieval church and its self-righteous persecution of those who would not recognise its authority.

eight little whores

Eight little whores worked the streets of Whitechapel
One little whore stayed at home
This little whore carved just for jolly
Gutted right down to the bone

Don’t tell me that you’re lonely ‘cause I know you’re only little whores

Seven little whores sold themselves for a shilling
A fumble for a finger of gin
One little whore was ever so willing
This little whore saved from sin

Eight little whores stitched up so pretty
Eight little whores said their prayers
Eight little whores all laid out like paupers
And none with a sovereign to spare

Eight little whores went like sows to the slaughter
Eight little daughters of joy.

I came across original Victorian street songs while writing ‘The Crimes of Jack The Ripper’ and thought that I might write something along similar lines. I had two mixes of this track by the time we had finished the album – one with a vocal on the middle 8 and one with the vocal muted so the instruments alone would carry that segment. I’m usually very certain of what I want on a track but this was one rare occasion when I couldn’t decide which I preferred and I don’t like to wait months before releasing an album so I didn’t give myself a chance to put it aside and listen a few months later. In retrospect I now prefer the mix with the vocal all the way through which appeared on ‘Professor Moriarty’s Jukebox’, an album of rarities and unreleased tracks.

ghost dance

Our mother’s the red earth we’re formed from, our father is the sky
This land is the lodge we live in, here we were born and here we’ll die

We were told the great sky spirit speaks no words with man
So he sent the buffalo and eagle that we might understand

The earth it hums a sad and low sound, a mother’s mournful song
We can hear it softly keening for we have listened long.

We walk in footprints of our fathers across the wounded plains
Where the spirits speak as four winds and their tears they fall as rain

I hadn’t written about native Americans before and didn’t expect to do so, but the rhythm of this song just called for that subject so I relented.

abramelin

My name is of no consequence. I’m a man of no significance
I have but a beggar’s eloquence to speak of Abramelin

I came an orphan to his door, he sheltered me from winters raw
And when at last there came the thaw I stayed with Abramelin

I learnt of nature’s mysteries, the secret art of sorcery
Of magic and magistery with white haired Abramelin

All I have is all I need on this my friend we are agreed
Let’s smoke the aromatic weed and talk of Abramelin

Every day’s a dying star, a grain of sand inside a jar
And it’s for us to know we are all sons of Abramelin.

It may seem a minor point and one hardly worth mentioning, but I like ambiguity in lyrics when more than one interpretation can be equally valid. Here the phrase ‘he sheltered me from winters raw’ could be heard as ‘he protected me from very severe winters’ or ‘he protected me from winter’s roar’ (ie the sound of the bitter wind).

tell-tale heart

Father I must make a full confession
I fear I have an unnatural obsession
The old man has the evil eye
For that alone he must die. I fear it’s so.

I had no feelings for or against him
It was his filmy eye that did condemn him
It followed me incessantly
It truly would not let me be and that’s no lie

I lay awake at night and I confide sir
I heard him creep and scuttle like a spider
Up and down the winding stair
Searching for what I know not where and that’s the truth.

I could end this suffering with just one blow
A merciful release and then no one need know
If this was you, you would be tempted too

I laid him out as befits an elder
And treated him both respectful and tender
But now I wake with quite a start
I hear the beating of his heart. It’s on and on.

I like this track not only because I played all the instruments, but because it has one of those quirky little passages that appeals to me (the ‘If this was you..’ line in this case).

sam hall (trad.)

foggy dew (trad.)