Nov 06, 2006 10:32 PM
1988 Views
I now turn my gaze to a nineteenth century poet and author named E A Poe and a twentieth century band that first introduced him to me. The Alan Parsons Project is a simple name given to a music group that was famous for its thematic albums, with three principals – Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson and Andrew Powell.
The album that I am speaking of is of course Parsons’ first venture, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s famous works. This was an album originally released in 1976 and I heard it about a decade or so later. What makes this a great album in my book is the manner in which the music spanned a few genres from rock through classical overtures and the adaptation of Poe’s tales in a mind blowing manner. The stories chosen for rendition were quite varied in terms of their plot and degree of macabre but enough said; to the actual songs themselves. . .
ToMaI starts off with A Dream Within A Dream, an instrumental prefaced with text inspired in Marginalia 150, a Poe article that appeared in Graham’s Magazine in 1846. Whilst this was absent in the original ’76 release, it was added to the 1987 CD version and rendered by the inimitable Orson Welles.
“FOR MY own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it. There is, however, a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy which are not thoughts, and to which as yet I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt to language. These fancies arise in the soul, alas how rarely. Only at epochs of most intense tranquility, when the bodily and mental health are in perfection; And at those weird points of time, where the confines of the waking world blend with the world of dreams; And so I captured this fancy, where all that we see, or seem, is but a dream within a dream.”
Moving on, we listen to The Raven, one of Poe’s better known poems, about a man who tries to forget an old love, Lenore by resorting to ancient and almost forgotten literature; at which point, one night he is awakened by a raven, which enters his rooms and perches on a statue of Pallas Minerva (Athena, the Greek goddess of Wisdom). To all questions that the unhappy man asks of it, including finally, if his soul will be lifted from shadow, the raven just retorts, “Nevermore”, the only word it knows. The accompanying tone to this poem is rock and to my mind, APP shape shifted from the lilting tone of Dream Within. . . to a more progressive rock sound in The Raven; and with an English chorale accompanying an electronic voice, this remains one of my favourite songs on the album.
The Tell-tale Heart follows, a poem of a man consumed with guilt as he listens to the beating of the heart of a person he killed. Arthur Brown’s vocals and extremely racy (?) music are just perfect. In many ways, I think of ToMaI as APP’s only contribution to the progressive rock world but more on that in later posts.
Next up is my totally favourite song in the entire album, The Cask of Amontillado. The soft and beckoning voices of John Miles and Terry Sylvester narrate the tale of the (un)Fortunato, who is entombed alive within the deep and extensive Montresor vaults. Together with a totally fabulous professional choir and a brass orchestra, this to me was the ultimate rendition of the classic tale of revenge. I could almost imagine the pride and majesty in Montresor’s gait when he had completed his task of cold blooded murder, all in the name of vengeance.
The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether follows Montresor and here we are introduced to the peculiar institution of the aforesaid gentlemen. A person visits a private mental asylum and finally discovers to his horror (?) that it has been taken over by the inmates, the keepers “tarred and feathered” by the reigning clown-act regularly. Set amidst strange noises and sounds, the song makes for a pleasant finish to the first part of the album before APP embark on the epic instrumental.
The Fall of the House of Usher is a monumental instrumental work divided into five parts and tells us the story of a doomed house and its owners, the Ushers. I particularly liked the piece, Pavane, which reminded me of thunder across the skies intermingling with heavy rain falling against a window pane – sort of like hearkening chaos. This remains one of my favorite instrumental works of all time.
And finally, “To One in Paradise” – a version of this poem is included in The Assignation (1844), one of Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The version used by APP was published as a separate work by Poe, and reads:
And all my days are trances; And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances; And where thy footstep gleams
In what ethereal dances; By what eternal streams!
The song itself is almost acoustic and with lovely melody, it still remains a great tune to listen to in all seasons.
I must add that I started to read the works of Poe after I listened to this album and having immersed myself in the beauty of his literature and works, I reheard this album several times over the years that followed.
Summary: Just because this album experimented with a stunning literary theme and pulled it off gracefully and for introducing me to a great author who continues to delight me even today, I say go and purchase it. This is another must have in any progressive rock or music aficionado’s collection.
Lyrical content: 8/10
Arrangement: 9.5/1o
