FUN FACT:
Inspired by one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories, I bought a theremin for this song. I'm also working on a video of this song for my YouTube channel.
lyrics
The Music of Erich Zann
Dwight Evan Young
Across a darkened river where
A haze of smoke shuts out the sun,
Atop the steep and cobble-patched street,
Nearby a lofty ivied wall,
In my sparse, fifth-story room,
From the peaked garret overhead,
Music of an old, mute, viol-player
Meets the air…
And I hear
Strange noises in the hallway.
I don’t know if I’m awake.
One night in the hall I called his name.
The old maestro took me in.
He played me music but it’s not the same.
Why won’t he play it?
Why won’t he play it?
And he jumped out of his chair
When I approached the curtained windowpane.
Under a strain we depart,
But concern still remains
When I hear
Strange sounds when I am dreaming.
In my mind there’s no escape.
Strange noises through the ceiling,
Waiting for the world to break.
How does he make ethereal music
Such as the likes I’d never known?
The dread of a vague wonder and mystery
Suggested nothing on this globe.
I’ve looked for the answers,
I’ve looked for the street,
But none of the maps that I found are complete.
And what can he see just beyond the window?
What does he hear when he’s alone?
The old man grew distant by the day,
And as the warmth began to fade
I secretly listened outside in the hall.
My ear to the door, I heard it all:
Then swelled a pandemonic sound,
A shriek at its peak, and a crash to the ground.
I called at his door and the recluse appeared,
But his face showed he feared the
Strange sounds, awoke by dreaming;
Terrified, what will they take?
Strange noises filled the evening,
Waiting for the world to break.
For an hour he wrote of the secrets he’d known,
But he stopped with a shock when he heard a low drone,
Distant as if from a house past the wall,
That which could be seen from his window alone.
The shutters then shook as the wind reached its height.
He jumped to his feet and his bow rends the night
With the wildest playing I’d ever recall,
What a horror to learn that his muse was his fright!
A gale broke the window, the transcript was lost.
From that lone garret vantage I finally saw
Black space in motion and music, alive!
Then I witnessed his playing, with cold lifeless eyes.
When I fled from the house the moon lit the night,
No breeze in the sky, and the city was bright.
The dreadful abyss and its secretes were gone,
Along with the music of Erich Zann.
How does he make ethereal music
Such as the likes I’d never known?
The dread of a vague wonder and mystery
Suggested nothing on this globe.
I’ve looked for the answers,
I’ve looked for the street,
But in the dark of the night it repeats:
Strange noises in the hallway
I don’t know if I’m awake.
credits
from In the Catacombs,
released January 30, 2018
Violin performed by Sean Wood
