FUN FACT:
I started writing this song after a particularly long stretch of reading Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft short fictions. The underground of the estate was largely inspired by The Rats in the Walls and The Cask of Amontillado, while other aspects of the story pull from other works of those authors.
lyrics
In The Catacombs
Dwight Evan Young
Strike a match; I’ll let you catch your breath.
Your fear of death won’t hurt you
But it makes this harder.
Slide down to the catacombs,
I won’t leave you alone.
Light creeps across stone in horror.
A fortnight since you heard the call
Hushed voices in the wall,
Enthralling, pull you ever deeper.
But you insisted on a guide,
You begged and I replied.
Now brother, let us face the reaper.
You shouldn’t be exploring
The sepulcher beneath your nose.
There lurks an ancient evil
Mirrored by the dark of our souls.
Drenched and quivering with fear,
The voice is getting near;
Imprisoned with the ghouls and specters.
Dust and must of rotting flesh
Assail us every breath,
Deep in the tomb of our ancestors.
What happened to our fathers?
Do you know how they died?
Have you heard the whispered rumors,
That they were buried alive?
You’d better not be in the catacombs,
In the catacombs,
When the spirits of the past awaken.
Tell me can you feel it in your bones?
Did you hear the moans
Through the cracks in the hardwood floor?
Oh, once they have you in their grasp, boy
They’ll never let you go.
You’d better not be in the catacombs,
In the catacombs…
When they rise.
Now behold the family line,
Each gone before their time.
Oh, do you think their ghosts resent us?
But I know words to wake the dead…
I’ll ask them in your stead.
Do tell, what makes the spirits restless?
Archaic stones begin to stir…
And the interred begin to rise…
And they cried:
Even in the darkness there is truth.
Even in deception there is truth.
Even in destruction there is truth.
Even in decay there is truth. [x4]
Betrayal cuts to the bone!
The dead are mad,
But they aren’t alone…
How dare I get these old stones, and you the gold?
The heir must pare back the vine! It’s what I’m owed!
The past must be rectified!– Then I felt cold
And rotting hands on my throat…
You’d better not be in the catacombs,
In the catacombs,
When the spirits of the past awaken.
Tell me do you think you have control
From an ancient tome,
When the dead have an axe to grind?
And once they have you in their grasp
They will never let you go!
You’d better not be in the catacombs,
In the catacombs…
When they rise.
