Quoth The Raven (Kinda)
The Alan Parsons Project released their first album in 1976, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, featuring musical reworkings of poems and stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
And that was the problem. There are very few writers of prose or poetry less suited to reworking of any kind, much less in pop musical form, than Poe. He was the most distinctive and deliberate of writers, and is strikingly unsuited to paraphrase.
As shown in the Project’s shot at “The Raven”:
In Poe’s “Raven,” the bird in question reflects the self-torturing bent of an already troubled narrator who, having heard it speak only the single word “Nevermore,” asks the raven very specific questions to which he is terrified, or perhaps certain, he already knows the answers. His misery is self-inflicted but horribly inevitable.
In the Project’s minimal take, a dude is followed around by a bird that keeps repeating “Nevermore” because — well, apparently just because.
The musical setting is fine in itself, though, with a good spooky tension to it, and a ghost of Steeleye Span in the opening. And the vocal (where you can hear it) is nicely done. But it all should’ve gone in service of some other lyrics. Tales of Mystery and Imagination was, I think, one of those Project projects that only sounded like a good idea.
Categories: Cheese Wizardry
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July 24th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Thank you for this one Bridey, I really enjoyed it.
After listening to this
and then taking a look at the lyrics
I really quite like the song,
especially around 3:12 where the vocals seem to take off.
It just seems that the song builds and builds
until it reaches this final section.
In a way I understand and agree with what you are saying
but I don’t think what The Project did failed Poe
at least not in this particular song
Thanks for a great one!