Hallowballadeering.

Here are three videos I made this weekend. They are all dark cautionary tales, though two are by Poe and rather grandiose, while the third is by me and so relatively unassuming.

All of these songs are previously unrecorded, unless you count very rough demos. Two I wrote in high school while in an independent study course (which when I look back was quite the zany romp, especially for a rural public school), and the third is from 2008 and was intended for a concept album.

The Conqueror Worm - Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! ’t is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
A mystic throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres

Mimes, in the form of God on high
Mutter and mumble low
And hither and thither fly
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At the bidding of vast shadowy  things
That shift the scenery to and fro
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot
And much of Madness, and more of Sin
And Horror the soul of the plot

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued

Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall
Comes down with the rush of a storm
While the seraphs, all haggard and wan
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm

The Haunted Palace - Edgar Allan Poe

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Snow-white palace — reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion —
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This — all this — was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute’s well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The sovereign of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! — for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the encrimsoned windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh — but smile no more.

Villains

I met all the villains last night
And they didn't seem evil at all
They took my coat and they offered me tea
They sat me down and prayed for me

I met all the villains last night
And their humor made me smile
We traded stories and stayed up late
They made me up with glitter paint

And it thrilled me to the bone
And I felt like I'd come home

I met all the villains last night
And their arms encircled me
And I knew in dark weather or fine
Their family'd stay closer than mine

I met all the villains last night
And when the lights went down
They stroked my hair and they kissed my head
And I slept soundly in their bed

And it felt like hand in glove
And I knew this must be...

I met all the villains last night
And in the morning sun
I smelled my breakfast on the stove
And I pulled on a crimson bathrobe

And it didn't scare me much
To see the exits bolted shut
Or that when I looked in the glass
Only they looked back