The Lake

Back to music for a while, not opera this time. My taste in music has always been, shall we say, mixed. One of my favourite pieces is one I stumbled upon a short time ago completely by accident. The song in question is by a little known group called 'Antony and the Johnsons' and it is based on the poem 'The Lake' by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is best known as a writer of tales of mystery and the macabre and The Lake has a mysterious quality to it. The video which accompanies the song is I think, equally fascinating and somewhat perplexing - can you work out what's going on? I'm sure you will agree, Antony has a unique voice - as unique as the music.

In youth's spring, it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth a spot
The which I could not love the less;
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound.
And the tall pines that tower'd around.
But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot — as upon all,
And the wind would pass me by
In its stilly melody,
My infant spirit would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright
But a tremulous delight,
And a feeling undefin'd,
Springing from a darken'd mind.
Death was in that poison'd wave
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his dark imagining;
Whose wild'ring thought could even make
An Eden of that dim lake.