The Fruits And The Spices Of Love
After a brief interruption, we begin again on our magical journey with a bit of late-period progressive rock from Genesis, from 1978′s Then There Were Three.
No non-live YouTube clip, so an iLike link instead.
This is a reworking of sorts of Keats’ “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” a short narrative poem in which a knight has spent a long and wonderful day with a stranger, a beautiful woman who soon declares she loves him. They retire to her “elfin grot,” but he has a terrible dream of “pale kings and princes too/Pale warriors, death-pale were they all,” who tell him he has fallen prey to “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” The knight, now doomed to lurk on a hillside forever, may be a ghost, dead like the Dame’s other victims, but if so he hasn’t caught on to it yet.
Genesis’ tale of a victimized knight has a less hapless hero, who starts off by rescuing the woman from a monster. But, as Phil tells us, “We know she’s a demon/Come to lure him to a demon’s lair.” This knight catches the warning signs, and “thanks her kindly, preparing to go on his way.” But she tempts him with “the fruits and the spices of love,” and he goes with her, knowing full well he’s walking into a trap. From which, like Keats’ knight, he never escapes. Of course, as Phil sings portentously, “Who can escape what he desires?” (That line may be one of rock’s better rhetorical questions.)
The lyrics of “The Lady Lies” are pretty much art-school prog, but the tune is strikingly poppy (and peppy) for the subject matter. Cut out a 90-second chunk in the middle (about 2:25 to 3:55, to be more precise), and melodically this could as easily be the Genesis of the ’80s. Though of course, the lyrics would need to be changed, probably to some kind of irritable love song.
There are some nice things going on musically, of course, though the band had lost Steve Hackett and there’s no guitar to be found. Collins does his usual masterful job on the drums, but it’s Tony Banks with keyboards and more keyboards driving this one, with some snazzy, attention-demanding swoopage opening the song, transforming into a gorgeous pipe organ sound that follows Collins up the scale on the first crescendo, at the 35-second mark. And whenever the demon lady begins to beg, “Come with me, I need you,” there’s a great clinkety-clink piano that underlines her hypocrisy.
The keyboard solo is nifty in itself, though it’s not actually a very good fit with the rest of the melody and goes too bluesy for these medieval goings-on. But the last time we hear from the lady, that clattery piano is once again accompanying her words, but faster and more aggressive, moving to the forefront for the last minute of the song. Her theme now dominates because, of course, she’s won.
Categories: Cheese Wizardry
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