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Hot off of the heels of a tour supporting Grace for Drowning, Steven Wilson opted to both expand upon the jazz-based sound of the former album into a full-on retro prog album for The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories). Part of this became possible by Steven’s intense study of the First Generation of progressive rock via his remixes of seminal releases from Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, and Emerson Lake and Palmer. But another that’s hardly the only thing which ensured that Steven’s third solo album would be the best one to introduce fans of old-school prog to Steven’s music. There are three other factors which ensure that The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) to pass as a pretty strong 70’s prog album: instrumental virtuosity, outside help who knew the ins-and-outs, and a dash of authenticity. All three factors indicate the pains Steven took to make this album sound like a love letter to 70’s prog rock.
In regards to the technical precision of Steven’s band, it’s telling that Steven had (for the first time) written passages beyond his own abilities on keyboard and guitar. Up until now, Steven wouldn’t be able to get away with that, but there’s a benefit to live performances—Steven got to know just what the live band from the Grace for Drowning tour could do. As a result, the backing band—consisting of jazz-based shredder Guthrie Govan, veteran session bassist Nick Beggs, keyboardist Adam Holzmann (who spent his twenties in Miles Davis’s 80’s band), and a polyrhythmic mastermind of a drummer named Marco Minneman—ended up serving as the most-talented ensemble that Steven’s ever worked with. There’s no doubt that Steven’s ensemble matched that of many of the classic 70’s prog bands, but it has the x-factor of Steven’s songwriting and lyricism. That songwriting functions in a typically-strong set of material. From the bombastic instrumental passages that give way to plaintive acoustics in “Luminol,” the melancholic harmonies of “Drive Home,” the pitch-black organ work permeating throughout “The Holy Drinker,” the tautly-complex tension of “The Pin Drop,” the warped folk and haunting harmonies of “The Watchmaker,” and the sublime title track, this album has some of Steven’s strongest songs yet.
Concerning outside help, there’s the fact that The Raven That Refused to Sing remains Steven’s only solo album where he’s not the sole producer. Falling directly in-line with the album’s ‘old-school prog’ aesthetic, Steven selected the assistance of Alan Parsons to co-produce the album—even coaxing him out of retirement. To anyone unfamiliar with the name of Alan Parsons in the world of prog, Alan had produced two albums that were widely influential to both prog and music in general: Abbey Road by The Beatles and The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. Additionally, Alan founded a band in the 70’s called The Alan Parsons Project that had some success. That Steven recruited a figure from prog’s golden age who was renowned from.
On the factor of authenticity, there’s one extreme example which indicates the lengths Steven undertook to make this album come across as a bona-fide 70’s prog album. That example comes from the fact that Steven procured the actual mellotron previously used on King Crimson’s 1969 debut In The Court of the Crimson King. One may think Steven could’ve found a good substitute for that mellotron, but he insisted on a 45-year-old instrument. Especially since the model used by King Crimson (a MK-2 mellotron) remains one of only two in the world that still work. And without Steven having courted the friendship of Robert Fripp (who owned the mellotron), this wouldn’t have happened.
With all of those factors addressed, there’s one other thing to state regarding The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories): it’s a concept album centered on a series of thematically-connected vignettes concerning ‘ghost stories.’ These take on the moods of sentimentality, horror (“The Holy Drinker”), recovery (“Drive Home), hopelessness (“Luminol”), self-delusion (the title track), betrayal (“The Pin Drop”), and regrets (“The Watchmaker”). Unlike several of Steven’s other concept albums (such as In Absentia, Deadwing, Fear of a Blank Planet, and Hand. Cannot. Erase.), The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) doesn’t follow an album-wide narrative. Therefore, each song remains self-contained.
For the longest time, The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories) was my second-favorite Steven Wilson solo album. Then, Grace for Drowning grew on me like a weed, but that’s not the point. The point is that Steven’s third solo album is still a fantastic album—and definitely the best place for an old-school prog fan to start listening to Steven Wilson and his many projects.
“Luminol” (12:10)
In what’s possibly the greatest opening track to any of Steven’s solo albums thus far, “Luminol” manages to grab the listener’s attention and serve as an ideal introduction to the themes, tone, and moods of the album. Appropriately so considering that a near-complete version of the song was captured on 2012’s Get All You Deserve live DVD (taken from a show in Mexico City on the Grace for Drowning tour). And the technicality comes right out of the gate via busy bass riffs and drum patterns from Nick Beggs and Marco Minneman. In fact, the opening four minutes are predominantly an instrumental jam using the rhythm section as a bedrock for solos played by Adam Holzmann on keyboard/organ, Theo Travis on flute, and Guthrie Govan on guitar. Eventually, the song quiets down for a sublime middle section led by acoustic guitar—supported by piano and marching drums to create a rustic feeling—where the majority of Steven’s lyrics occur. Then, there’s a long build-up of several instrumental sections before culminating in a mellotron section which acts as a transition into a brief reprise of the instrumental intro—functioning as an outro.
Lyrically speaking, “Luminol” connects to the ‘ghost story’ motif in an out-of-left-field fashion: by showing how easily a living person can become a living ghost. Through the example of a struggling street guitarist, Steven’s lyrics paint a haunting portrait (in just ten lines of lyrics) of a person who’s simultaneously a hopeless determinator and a graceful loser. In this regard, ‘ghost’ is a state of existence pertaining to being ignored and/or forgotten—whether in a person’s lifetime or posthumously. Heck, the state of invisibility imbued to ‘ghost’ also factors into the song’s title (emphasis my own):
Luminol: a chemical containing carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen; used at by crime scene investigators to detect blood at crime scenes where no blood is visible.
That last part factors heavily into notions of the world ignoring a person’s existence due to either ignorance or apathy towards what that person does—a theme which becomes a central focus in Hand. Cannot. Erase. Here, the title also functions as a clue—one that can register as an insult regarding sticking to tradition or a sign of pity because Steven can see an aspect of himself in this forgotten street musician.
The opening lines of “Luminol” come in the middle of an instrumental jam (at 1:15) in a harmonization pattern that reminds me of Yes’s “Close To The Edge.” Maybe deliberately since this song’s structure reminds me of “Heart of the Sunrise” (also by Yes[1]). However, it’s also one I always feel tempted to break out and sing along with whenever I hear its ethereal delivery:
Here we all are, born into a struggle To come so far, but end up returning to dust.
One reading of “Here we all are” centers on the identity of “we.” While “Here” most likely refers to the Earth, the identity of “we” remains slightly ambiguous. But it makes sense to me that “we” refers to humanity in general and possibly functions as a fourth-wall-break within the lyrics. Additionally, the storybook feel of the album may be announced here since these are the first lines of the album.
Whatever that phrase means, it ends up followed by “Born into a struggle/To come so far.” In these phrases, “struggle” obliquely mirrors the state of existence itself—in the sense of Thomas Hobbes’s famous description of life outside of society being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” However, Steven’s lyrics feel all-encompassing and universal in that they apply to anyone inside or outside society. Hence the reference to a human quality in the phrase “To come so far” relating to ambitions, hopes, dreams, and the methods that human beings are willing to undertake in order to achieve them.
If one still remains unconvinced by the universality of these opening lyrics, then there’s the last phrase: “But end up returning to dust.” Not only does this present a clear reference to death, but the specific wording presents a view that’s equally pessimistic as Hobbes’s theory whilst serving as a thesis which indicates why the storybook-like quality of the album’s characters can’t become reality. Furthermore, any ambitions become useless since the words “end up” convey that nothing in life lasts. Finally, “returning to dust” imbues the song with a personal touch of Steven’s atheism while also entailing a naturalist state-of-mind in-line with Steven’s lyrics to “Deform to Form a Star.”
Once the instrumental jam winds down (at 4:22) and the music quiets down (again, much like Yes’s “Heart of the Sunrise”), Steven’s first proper verse rears forward:
Oxfam panache and tips his hat (laces undone). He has no truck with idle chat (work to be done). The songs he learned from scratched LPs. Stops in mid-flow to sip his tea.
A softly-sung line that reads “Oxfam panache and tips his hat (laces undone)” likely has first-time listeners wondering what “Oxfam panache” means. For that, two definitions are necessary:
Oxfam: short for Oxford Committee for Famine Relief
Panache: flamboyant confidence of style or manner; flair
Using this, one can read that the character has the mannerisms of a gentleman despite living in conditions not-far-removed from homelessness and starvation. Such a façade comes right in-line with the mannerism described by the phrase “tips his hat.” However, the phrase of backing vocals that follows—“laces undone”—acts as a response to the lead vocal and serves to undercut the character’s gentlemanly facade.
Another old-fashioned detail appears at the start of the line “He has no truck with idle chat (work to be done).” In this line, the phrase “no truck with idle chat” draws upon ‘to have no truck with,’ an English idiom dating to the seventeenth-century meaning ‘to have no dealings with.’ Here, the meaning of the phrase reflects the character’s fervor while the use of anachronistic language coheres with the rustic quality of both the character and this section of the song. But the phrase’s meaning and how it reflects the character’s fervor becomes further described by the backing vocal’s phrase of “work to be done.” Those four words morph that fervor into an obsession. Interestingly, one can claim that Steven shares the same fervor, but later lyrics determine that there are crucial differences between the Steven’s passion for music and that of this song’s character.
One such difference appears in the lines “The songs he learned from scratched LPs,/Stops in mid-flow to sip his tea.” Namely in the phrase “songs he learned” suggesting that this street musician learns music yet seldom creates new music, the polar opposite of Steven. Despite that difference, these two figures share something from “scratched LPs” in the notion that both are old-fashioned veterans of their respective music scenes. Not only that, but both have to accept the sobering reminder conveyed by “Stops in mid-flow”—that one cannot live on music alone since nobody can eat music. Yet this line ends with Steven distancing himself from this character by describing him “sip his tea,” an action with qualities that are both rustic and pastoral whereas Steven’s opted towards something more forward-thinking.
The third and last set of lyrics in “Luminol” continue Steven’s distancing from the street musician that the song paints a vivid picture of:
He strums the chords with less than grace (songs we all know). Each passing year etched on his face (sun, rain, or snow). The words he sings are not his own. They speak of things he'll never know.
Such a distancing rears its head as early as the first line: “He strums the chords with less than grace (songs we all know).” Right from “with less than grace,” the listener gets the sense that this particular street musician isn’t talented in terms of skill, but contains volumes of passion for music—making him the musical equivalent of infamous movie director Ed Wood.[2] That quality becomes further demonstrated by the backing vocal’s reply of “songs we all know,” which suggests that this street musician remains unoriginal and plays standards of both folk and traditional music. Although that’s fine-and-dandy, a downside to that comes from the fact that this means this street musician never truly expresses his voice like Steven does in his music. Instead, he regurgitates the voices of decades past.
Appropriately, decades come about in the line “Each passing year etched on his face (sun, rain, or snow).” Especially since “Each passing year” renders it indeterminate as to how long this street musician’s functioned under the same routine—the lone hint (the antiquated diction of “Oxfam panache”) implies that he’s been at it for decades. Such a detail’s also conveyed in the phrasing of “etched on his face,” but in a manner that connotes both the physicality of aging and in artistic terms which reinforce the storybook quality of the album itself. That storybook quality’s also echoed in the phrase “sun, rain, or snow,” which illuminates the natural forces that the street musician must fight against annually in order to keep up his routine on a daily basis—something which exhibits unyielding determination.
That’s made all-the-more lamentable in the final lines of the song: “The words he sings are not his own/The speak of things he’ll never know.” For “are not his own,” it points to another downside inherent toward playing “songs we all know”—this street musician’s not genuine and can’t relate to these songs in their original contexts. One can also point out that unless a musician invents an entire lexicon of words for his/her/their lyrics (the only example I can think of that happening is with the band Magma[3]), any musician/lyricist remains bound to the same limitations of tradition and imitation since they’re limited to the same pool of words. Since this applies to any musician or lyricist, this can also be used as a knock against Steven, too. Such a removal of context applies to the phrase “things he’ll never know” insofar as—when added to the obsession entailed by “work to be done”—guarantees that this street musician’s less capable of balancing his duties and his profession than Steven.
Even if that concludes the lyrics of “Luminol,” there’s plenty of music left. Immediately after Steven finishes saying “know,” (at 6:27) there’s a break where all the instruments come to a dead-stop save for what sounds like a double-tracked passage of Theo’s flute ascending up a musical scale. Just the way the flute sounds almost emphasizes how utterly alone this street musician is in his passion. Which serves as a thematic prelude to the piano solo (at 6:44) from Adam since it’s accompanied by the restrained busy-ness of the jazz backing from earlier as well as the sound of crowds shuffling around a busy city. That last part’s the most telling since the people going about their business never once utter a word—a reflection both of all the people who pass him every day and of how little this street musician matters to the world.
Once the piano solo begins wrapping up, a section (at 7:39) of vocal harmonizations (probably achieved with overdubs) using the word ‘la’ carries over the top of a few revolutions of the primary chord progression. These harmonies carry significance since the ethereal tone of their delivery marks the voice of this street musician coming to life. One can read the harmonies as this street musician singing a triumphant last song—almost like a musical equivalent of the dying bureaucrat on the swingset in Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru.[4] Afterwards (at 8:13), there’s a reprise of the mellotron break (from 6:27). However, it’s not a 1:1 replication since a flourish from Theo’s flute operates as a counterpoint that possibly marks the moment of death for this street musician.
If that flute fill doesn’t mark the street musician dying, then the slow mellotron-led section (at 8:31) certainly does. At this point, the melancholic feeling of perfectly-working mellotron only becomes otherworldly in how the guitar sustains from Guthrie complement the tone—at once somber and triumphant. Somber since the section reflects not only the street musician’s death, but that his death means nothing. Triumphant since the section indicates that the street musician remained true to himself and defiant until the very end. Perhaps that defiance justifies the build-up facilitated by the arrival (at 9:32) of a choir.
Even if the build-up ends the story of the street-musician, the next section (at 10:06)—a piano-led section of ascending arpeggios that repeats in a higher key once the intro pattern returns (at 10:39)—effectively creates a bookend for the song insofar as the storybook quality is concerned. In that sense, the reprise of the opening instrumental jam that culminates in a second guitar solo (at 10:50) from Guthrie feels entirely appropriate since it mirrors the closing of a book. And if this song were a story told to a child, the ending of this instrumental jam by going into quiet may as well mark tucking the child into bed afterwards.
“Drive Home” (7:37)
A track that’s as laid-back as “Luminol” was bombastic, “Drive Home” serves the same function to The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) that “I Talk To The Wind” served for In The Court of the Crimson King[5]—a welcome respite after a song as overwhelming as “Luminol.” Sure, the song’s on the long side, but its structure isn’t far removed from a traditional pop song until the guitar solo. What distinguishes “Drive Home” are the layers of guitar and keyboard which register as a hyper-melancholic blend of Hackett-era Genesis and Jethro Tull. Bass and Drums fill things in, but they don’t play as active of a role as they did in “Luminol.” But the real highlight comes from Guthrie Govan’s ending guitar solo—an improvised two-and-a-half minute solo played on the first take which elicited an emotional reaction from Steven himself.
In a similar fashion to “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here” and the last image of “The Incident,”[6] the lyrics to “Drive Home” concern the ghost of a person who was killed in a violent car accident. Unlike either, “Drive Home” concerns trauma in the person left behind—in this case, a partner of the deceased. A comment of Steven’s regarding this song that proves particularly illuminating appears as follows:
“The song is basically about missing time; it’s the idea of blocking out time because of something so traumatic that you literally remove it from your mind.”
From that, one can ascertain that this song takes place a significant amount of time after the accident.
“Drive Home” begins with Guthrie playing a plaintive, clean-toned guitar pattern. Adding to the plaintive quality are the minor-key piano chords with which Adam punctuates some of Guthrie’s notes. Meanwhile, some bass sustains from Nick reverberate as lightly as a feather. The entire tone remains melancholic yet relaxed.
That relaxation fades at instant that drums enter (at 0:30), at which point Guthrie’s folk-like guitar backed by Adam’s piano in order to serve as a framework for Steven’s verse:
Cold windowpane, A car upturned in the rain. Wait on in vain, Don't try to bear the blame. Deal with the pain, Dust down your wings again.
Steven’s first two lines—“Cold windowpane,/A car upturned in the rain”—remain simple, but carry a lot of weight. First off, “Cold” becomes an apt description of the speaker’s emotional state in that he’s either depressed or numb from grief. But the use of the word “windowpane” proves of interest since it isn’t the first time that the image of a windowpane has appeared in Steven’s music. Because in 2003, Steven produced and co-wrote a song by Opeth titled “Windowpane” (found on their album Damnation),[7] which contain lyrics that concern the topic of physical child abuse. Even though “Drive Home” concerns self-inflicted emotional abuse, the recurrence of the symbol of a windowpane in Steven’s music is telling since it implies that this song’s speaker views himself as helpless as a child because he couldn’t prevent the accident that occurred. That accident presents itself with an obvious physical indicator in the phrase “car upturned in the rain.”
In this regard, the futility of the speaker continues in the lines “Wait on in vain,/Don’t try to bear the blame.” Here, the word “Wait” entails that the speaker’s utterly powerless to make a difference in what happened or what happens. That’s a distinction worth bringing up since the song’s supposed to occur in past tense, but “Wait on in vain” creates a continuity jumble regarding tenses insofar as the present tense marks the present intruding upon the past since the speaker only knows via hindsight how these events unfolded. However, that hindsight creates a hazard via “Don’t try to bear the blame,” where the speaker knows it’s unhealthy to blame himself, but can’t accept that someone he truly cared about died in a senseless yet random fashion.
Even though the “Deal” in the lines “Deal with the pain,/Dust down your wings again” obviously refers to confronting the problem, the random does factor into the lines in-general. Namely via “the pain,” which runs into a snag because direct confrontation impossible unless the problem assumes a physical form—the speaker’s pain arises from the emotional trauma of losing his lover in an accident, so it can’t be confronted. But it still must be dealt with for a positive change to occur. Until then, the phrase “Dust down your wings” proves apt because the lingering memory of the guilt blocks the possibility of the beauty of the speaker’s life from taking full-bloom. However, that wording of “Dust down your wings” probably shouldn’t be taken at face-value since it’s possibly a reference to Ernest Hemingway’s infamous backhanded compliment to F. Scott Fitzgerald.[8] Especially given that “again” entails that the speaker’s unsuccessfully tried to “Deal with the pain” on multiple occasions.
The words which Steven uses for the chorus are surprisingly hopeful given this song’s subject matter, something supported by the change into a new rhythm backed by orchestration:
You need to clear away all the jetsam in your brain And face the truth. Well, love can make amends While the darkness always ends. You're still alone, So drive home.
In a sense, this chorus—starting from the lines “You need to clear away all the jetsam in your brain/And face the truth”—comes from the perspective of the ghost of the departed woman trying to tell her beloved to get ahold of himself. One reason why comes from “need” since it rightly implies that this wallowing isn’t a way to live—lingering on to it can result in drastic things such as a suicidal instance of depression or arriving at the end of one’s life in a state akin to the speaker of the title track. As for “all the jetsam in your brain,” that’s a brilliant image equating the speaker’s yearnings and false hopes as a pile of reality-obscuring detritus. Ending these lines comes the phrase “face the truth,” a phrase which (despite being slightly heavy-handed) registers as a command for the speaker to move on from the accident as best as he possibly can.
A possible method of moving on is suggested in the lines “Well, love can make amends/While the darkness always ends.” In this sense, it’s important to note that “love” can refer to both the love that these two shard when she was alive and to love for a fellow human being—a notion to which empathy remains a pre-requisite. That this form of love’s able to “make amends” implies that both empathy and reaching out remain crucial towards emotionally recovering from a tragedy like this gets slightly defused by “darkness always ends,” an instance of the departed woman’s ghost making things seem better than they will be. It’s important to consider that some wounds don’t fully heal, but since healing at all’s preferable to letting such a wound fester and destroy a person, this ghost’s lie counts as a white lie.
The way that the ghost of the departed woman ends the chorus with the lines “You’re still alone,/So drive home” appears to follow a different train-of-thought as the previous four. But it expresses the same concern for her lover’s well-being as the previous four lines. Starting from “still,” it’s clear that she’s in disbelief that he’s taken this long to move on. Such a detail’s reinforced by the utterance of “So” in a way synonymous with a plea—as in “please.” Finally, the titular phrase of “drive home”—repeated multiple times in the second chorus—carries multiple meanings. Thematically, it’s the departed woman’s ghost wanting her beloved to be save, to move on from her death, and be able to live life to the fullest. Symbolically, the same phrase asks him to drive away from wallowing in the memory—to “don’t let the memory of the sound drag you down.”[9]
There’s a rather ambiguous note in regards to tone about Steven’s last verse of this song, which returns to the perspective of the first verse:
A pause without end. A moment in time suspends. How could she leave? Release all your guilt and grieve. Give up your pain. Hold up your head again.
From these first two lines (“A pause without end/A moment in time suspends”), there’s a before-and-after exhibited regarding the effect that the chorus had on the speaker’s mindset. Before things happened, the status-quo was in the “pause without end” since he half-expected her to return. Since she’s dead, that’s impossible, but that doesn’t stop him from actively blocking the traumatic memory until the departed woman’s ghost reminded him of it during the chorus. Once that reminder of the “moment in time” (the instant of the accident) occurs, it “suspends” and becomes an obsession because what he suppressed earlier has now come back to stare him square in the face.
This obsession does enable the developments of the next two lines: “How could she leave?/Release all your guilt and grieve.” Here, the simple question of “How could she leave?” conveys that the speaker’s in disbelief and denial, but that’s still in the progress of moving on and therefore preferable to the suppression he exhibited earlier. Things do hat a snag starting with “Release,” a fine thought that the song doesn’t state how he should do it or any healthy way to achieve this. Furthermore, the quantity of “all” is misleading because a portion of the negative emotions will likely linger forever. Especially of “guilt”—which connotes that the speaker still blames himself for his lover’s death—registers in a just manner (like if it were if he drove the car when the accident occurred).
All of this culminates in a note of resignation during the lines “Give up your pain/Hold up your head again.” At this point, “Give up” suggests a surrender and a moving on, but without forgetting that the lover once lived. However, the wording of “Hold up” conveys that this won’t be easy since the construction of those words entails a persistence against a struggle. One lyrical ambiguity comes across with “your,” a word that comes from either the speaker telling these words to himself or the ghost telling them to the speaker. Regardless, “head” refers to the person’s mind and how the speaker should weather through the storm of depression and traumatic memories that’ll never leave him.
Following the second chorus, there’s (at 3:52) a section that constitutes as the song’s bridge. Careful listeners will not that it’s a reprise of the intro since it uses the same guitar part. Only this time, that guitar part’s also echoed on a saxophone from Theo Travis. All the while, some emphatic cymbal taps are supplied by Marco. Before there’s a brief section (at 4:39) of a clean-picked acoustic guitar from Steven’s shimmering rhythm guitar.
Once volume swells emanate from Guthrie’s guitar (at 5:10), the best guitar solo that’s graced any project of Steven’s has officially begun. For two-and-a-half magical minutes, Guthrie plays a guitar solo which reflects the pent-up emotions of the speaker with a similar intensity to that conveyed by David Gilmour in the famed final solo to Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” There are several phases in the solo itself and the improvised nature of the solo allows Guthrie to veer between the melodic phrasing of David Gilmour, the technical prowess of Joe Satriani, and the jazz scales of Al Di Meola seamlessly. All the while, Guthrie’s tone acts as a mixture between that of John Petrucci (Dream Theater) and Steve Hackett. There’s simply no words that can convey this solo accurately, but it does what any great solo should do: elevate the song to a place that words could never reach.
“The Holy Drinker” (10:14)
Musically, “The Holy Drinker” contains the heaviest jazz influence out of any song on the album—at least the first half of the song. In that first half, there’s a strong emphasis on vamping during an extended instrumental jam that comprises the first two minutes of the song. Metrically, “The Holy Drinker” functions as the album’s most complex song—time signatures of 17/16, 8/4, 6/4, and 7/4 end up creating lurching rhythms that end up stopping abruptly. Only for the middle section to have the song suddenly go quiet and invoke severe dread before a riff based on the tri-tone acts as the song’s outro. But throughout the entire song, there’s a nightmarish quality which points to a massive King Crimson influence—even the quiet sections aren’t exempt from invoking terror.
Perhaps that terror is just. Whereas “Luminol” and “Drive Home” had shades of negativity, the speakers of those songs were at least good people at heart. That’s not the case with “The Holy Drinker,” whose speaker’s a hypocritical, preachy, self-righteous person who likes to tell others how to live their lives (in a religious sense) despite being an alcoholic. Evidently, this person’s foolish enough to challenge a stranger in a bar to a drinking contest—only to find out that the person he just challenged is Satan. Given that this man’s mortal and Satan’s immortal, the speaker loses and gets dragged to Hell.
One curious note of detail presents itself from this quote from Steven concerning the song’s speaker:
“The great irony is that he’s vindicated, in a sense, but in the worst possible way.”
A possible interpretation of this ‘vindication’ is made possible by suggesting that the speaker selectively interprets the Bible. Namely that—in his arrogance—the speaker thinks he’s as holy as Jesus Christ for going to Hell. Doing so ignores not only the episode of the Harrowing of Hell, but glosses over the Crucifixion itself—something anyone who calls themselves a Christian would surely be familiar with.
“The Holy Drinker” begins with all the oddities intact: a lone organ from Adam Holzmann, an ominous-sounding melody, and an off-kilter time-signature of 17/16. Although that last part isn’t easy to discern until (at 0:21) Marco Minnemann’s drums and Nick Beggs’s chapman stick (a substitute for bass which is played exclusively with the ‘finger tapping’ technique) enter the fray. There’s definitely a groove to their adroitly-played parts—despite the fact that 17/16 remains the most uncommon time signature on the entire album. Regardless, their rhythmic foundation forms the bedrock on which extended solos from three instruments are played. First up to bat is Guthrie Govan’s guitar solo acting as a vigorous ‘dance upon the coals’ moment in how he deftly maneuvers about with a reckless abandon that’s the polar opposite to the tightly-controlled beauty of the “Drive Home” solo. Next (at 0:58) comes Adam’s synthesizer solo that demonstrates his Miles Davis-learned technical chops in a way that’s only found on “Luminol” among the tracks on the album. But that solo (at 1:20) abruptly cuts off and changes gears as Theo Travis takes center-stage via a saxophone solo that’s possibly the most chaotic on the entire album.
Immediately after Theo’s solo wraps up, a sudden severing of the 17/16 rhythm (at 2:17) serves as both a transition and an opportunity to jolt the listener’s attention before heading into the main rhythm for Steven to deliver his first verse (at 2:22):
The Holy Drinker and his curse. In constant serfage to unquenchable thirst.
And from his stupor, the night gives birth. The devil rises from right out of the earth.
In something that’s apparent from the opening lines (“The Holy Drinker and his curse/In constant serfage to unquenchable thirst”), the only name given to the song’s character registers as highly ironic. Indeed, to call this man “The Holy Drinker” reflects the notion that while alcohol (in excess) links to a vice, communion wine imbues this name with strong religious connotations. Both the “curse” and “serfage” convey that this character’s an alcoholic and therefore a slave to his own vices.
It should come as no surprise that the line “And from his stupor, the night gives birth” implies that (namely from the phrase “from his stupor”) every problem in this song arises from the character’s alcoholism—a dulled state of mind. But what’s unexpected comes from the phrase “the night gives birth.” That phrase alone contains words which carry a nightmarish quality due to the blend of imagery that contains roots in nature, astronomy, and anatomy—an appropriate description for what comes next.
A line such as “The devil rises from right out of the earth” registers as striking for a number of reasons. First, the mention of “The devil” proves striking given that Steven’s an atheist, but because an atheist would perceive matters relating to God and the Devil as fiction, an ordinarily-religious notion now coheres with the storybook quality of the rest of the album. But make no mistake, “The Holy Drinker” begins a trio of songs which come across as the type of stories found in nightmares or the Brothers Grim.
Following this first verse (and the wordless chorus) appears a strident guitar riff (at 3:28) which ends up reappearing much later in the song. In many ways, this riff’s heavy reliance on the tri-tone (a musical scale associated with heavy metal as far back as Black Sabbath, whose self-titled song offers an example of the tri-tone in the main guitar riff) becomes the motif of the devil in this song. Fitting for reasons both historical (medieval-era classical musicians were told by the church not to play music in a tri-tone out of fear of summoning the devil—the origin of the term diabolus in musica) and narrative—consider the last line of lyrics that appeared before this riff.
Now that Satan’s appeared in the song itself, it’s time for Steven’s second verse (at 3:55) to document what comes next:
With shaking hands and blackened heart, The glass he pours, this time it's also the last.
In rapt communion with himself, The Holy Drinker is going straight into Hell.
Despite the dulled senses of alcohol, the lines “With shaking hands and blackened heart,/The glass he pours, this time it’s also the last” convey some awareness of the situation. That’s probably due to “shaking hands” reflecting the character’s nervousness as to what he’s gotten himself into. But that same phrase can also suggest alcoholic tremblings. Still, sinful behavior wins with “blackened heart” constituting as a clear reference to the character’s blend of corruption and hypocrisy. Furthermore, the third-person perspective of “this time it’s also the last” provides a surefire sign that the character’s doomed to lose.
For various reasons, the lines that end this verse (“In rapt communion with himself,/The Holy Drinker is going straight into hell”) carry stings of both irony and ignorance due to the phrase “rapt communion with himself.” In a literal sense, the Holy Drinker is an anti-Christ in that he’s the opposite of Jesus in regards to why he’s drinking communion. Unlike Jesus drinking for salvation, the Holy Drinker (knowingly or not) is drinking for his own soul being taken away for the eternal damnation connoted by “going straight into Hell.”
Following the bombastic second chorus, a new rhythm (at 5:10) played in 7/4 by Nick’s Chapman stick and Marco’s drums commences to act as a vamp for more instrumental solos. Both Adam’s brief organ solo and Theo’s extended flute solo (at 5:29) may represent the Holy Drinker attempting to run away from Satan after losing the drinking contest. Not the brightest of ideas since one can then interpret the next section (at 6:13)—a 4/4 rhythm overlaid by Adam’s busy organ-work which intensifies into a maelstrom once Guthrie harmonizes with it on his guitar—as the Devil foiling the Holy Drinker’s escape.
Afterwards (at 6:47), all the instrumentation appears to crawl to a halt. The exceptions coming from cymbal taps from Marco at every half-measure and from the unsettling tones generated by both Adam and Guthrie. Despite being the quietest section of the song, it’s also the eeriest—a clear example of Steven utilizing the tension-building techniques of 1970’s King Crimson to great effect. Especially considering what comes next in the lyrics.
Speaking of those lyrics, probably the most striking and the most disturbing lines of the song arrive in this too-quiet section—whose perspective has shifted to the Holy Drinker himself:
The coffin was made from a tree. Please hammer a nail in for me.
The couplet of “The coffin was made from a tree/Please hammer a nail in for me” register as unnerving on multiple fronts. For instance, the phrase “coffin was made from a tree” indicates a perversion of nature since “made” entails a manufacturing process. Additionally, a “coffin” (being a confined space) doesn’t allow the freedom required for the revelry exhibited by the Holy Drinker in life, so it’s a punishment insofar as it constitutes a personal Hell. But where the Holy Drinker’s true character as one ignorant of the specifics behind his own religion reveals itself is in the phrase “hammer in a nail for me.” That phrase is another comparison to Jesus, but the comparison falls apart since the driving of the nails into his flesh didn’t instantly kill Jesus—it was the agony of the protracted Crucifixion that did Jesus in.
The structure of rhyming (or half-rhyme) couplets for verses doesn’t apply for the last set of lyrics that Steven offers:
The bottle slipped right through Plague pits. Now underground, Take me down. Down. Put me in chains.
An utterly horrific image rears its ugly head in the lines “The bottle slipped right through/Plague pits.” At this point, “slipped” carries the implication that the Devil cursed the bottle so that—while drinking the last drops—the Holy Drinker swallowed it whole. The whole thing’s made even worse via “Plague pits” and its reference to the digestive system of the sinful Holy Drinker. Here, there’s a clear image of how the Holy Drinker died: by having the glass booze bottle break apart inside his stomach, leaving the glass shards to act as shrapnel shredding apart his digestive organs from the inside-out. While karmic, that’s an excruciatingly-painful way to die—one of the worst when considering that a punctured stomach would form holes for stomach acid to leak out and cover internal organs.
The song’s last three lines (“Now underground,/Take me down/Put me in chains”) end the song in about the only way possible. Beginning with “Now,” there’s the confirmation that the previous two lines (not the “hammer in a nail for me”) that delivered the killing blow to the Holy Drinker. That continues with “underground,” a wording which proves applicable towards both the states of being in the coffin and the state of being in Hell considering that the Devil rose “right out of the earth” earlier in the song. Extending from that comes “take,” a phrasing entailing that the Holy Drinker’s accepted his fate as being condemned to Hell—albeit reluctantly. Finally, “in chains” marks the punishment sustained by the Holy Drinker for living the sinful life he did. Yet that phrase also indicates his acceptance in a way where it feels like he’s saying “Well, Satan, a deal’s a deal.”
After a barely-audible sigh from Steven after delivering the final word of the song, there’s a small break. Then (at 8:35), Adam’s distorted organ crashes through before a bombastic drum fill from Marco ushers in the song’s outro—an ominous audio representation of the Holy Drinker’s descent towards the gates of Hell and then Hell itself. That idea only gains more credence via the recurrence (at 9:09) of the Devil’s leitmotif (from 3:28), which now carries a greater sense of malice than before due to the fuller instrumentation. Not only that, but the rest of the instrumentation—most notably Adam’s organ—are also playing counterpoint melodies in a tri-tone. If the first instance of the tri-tone in this song symbolized the Devil, than the army of simultaneous tri-tones at play in the outro marks the sounds to match the mouth of Hell—appropriate given that it’s swallowing the Holy Drinker.
“The Pin Drop” (5:03)
Regarding musical composition, “The Pin Drop” is both the album’s shortest song and (in the eyes of most) the album’s weakest link. Fortunately, it’s still a pretty good song that would hold up well against material from Grace for Drowning and Insurgentes. And the primary element that fuels “The Pin Drop” comes from the tension inherent in the melodic phrasing of the main musical motif: supplied by an acoustic guitar playing a pattern that switches between two different keys—never staying on one key for too long.
In terms of lyrics, one recognizes the sense of Stockholm syndrome coming from the speaker of “The Pin Drop.” And that’s no accident since the song’s speaker is the ghost of a wife who was killed and had her body dumped in a river by her husband. In one sense, this makes the song a modern-day murder ballad. But in another, it emphasizes a danger of entering a relationship out of convenience—something which both husband and wife carry blame for. If that comes across as implying that the wife’s fate in this song is karmic, it shouldn’t—this relationship ends in disaster, but the wife didn’t deserve to die in said disaster. In the words of Steven himself:
“The idea is that sometimes in a relationship there can be so much tension, so much unspoken resentment and hatred, that the tiniest thing can set off a violent episode, and in this case, one that ends in tragedy. The sound of a pin dropping on a floor can be the thing that instigates the fury.”
That’s not a comforting thought. In fact, it’s one which may occur so abruptly that the sense of Stockholm syndrome can just as easily be interpreted as the wife’s ghost being blindsided by what hit her.
“The Pin Drop” opens with a fleet-fingered motif on acoustic guitar which serves as the primary instrumental support for Steven’s verses. A listener instantly feels the musical tension considering that the pattern veers between two different keys—swapping once every two measures. The first key used is of noticeably higher pitch than the second key. After this motif plays through one revolution, Steven delivers the following lines (at 0:14) in a falsetto voice which sounds like he’s straining to hit notes just outside his vocal range:
Carried away by the river that passes through bulrushes on to the sea. Dragged by the current to rest on the stakes of the breakwater shaded by trees. Beginnings and endings, love intersecting a rift that will break us apart.
While two of these rather-long lines are setting the scene of the ghost-wife floating down the river, the third line (“Beginnings and endings, love intersecting a rift that will break us apart”) introduces the thematic core of the song. Of particular interest comes the phrase “Beginnings and endings,” which places the start of the fabricated relationship in sharp juxtaposition with the violent conclusion of her life. A further development of matters denotes itself via “love intersecting a rift,” where it’s important to note that this isn’t love at play, but the pretense of a one-sided love. What’s meant by that is that the speaker grew to love the other person, but the other person grew to loathe her—hence the “rift.” However, that “rift” also owes a debt to the speaker’s mixture of blind faith and Stockholm syndrome, which left her unable to see the proverbial writing on the wall until the present moment—posthumously. But even that’s not certain since the phrase “will break us apart”—with the future tense of “will”—acts as a method of denial which conveys that the speaker still feels that the relationship hasn’t ended yet.
This next set of lines (first appearing at 0:59)—accompanied by a jump in volume and gorgeous harmonies—constitutes the a-chorus, probably the moment that the denial withers away from the speaker in a moment of epiphany:
Love learned. In turn, Dreams burned.
On two levels, the first line of “Love learned” proves apt. First, “Love” is usually instinctually felt between two people (problematic given modern notions of asexuality and polyamory) and faking it can lead to a tragedy such as this one due to the tension that’s embodied in the song itself. Secondly, the word “learned” reflects both the aforementioned fakery and the ‘settling for comfort’ idea since she believed that they’d grow to love each other in a genuine way. Unfortunately, to say that that didn’t work out is a massive understatement.
Continuing the connotations of the last line are the final two lines of the a-chorus: “In turn,/Dreams burned.” Commencing with the connective phrase “In turn,” there’s the suggestion that the next phrase (“Dreams burned”) marks the direct result of “Love learned.” As for “Dreams burned,” that’s the epiphany itself. Here, the bitter reality of two things—that the “Love” was a shame and that her life has violently ended—are staring her in the face so intently that she can’t ignore it, so it’s a moment of a dark epiphany.
Such a dark epiphany reaches the point of sorrow in the form of Theo Travis’s saxophone solo (at 1:27). Just the way the solo lunges out of the speakers feels like the notes themselves could cut the air with the tension that the first ninety seconds of the song have built up. In another sense, Theo’s solo flows with such an urgency that it’s practically the musical embodiment of the river’s pouring water.
As for the b-chorus (first appearing at 1:57), these lines are backed by some furious tremolo picking by Guthrie and the same rhythmic accompaniment from the a-chorus:
I am tired of struggling And the rain is beating down on me. I tried to be the way that he wanted me to be. I did not hear the pin drop down. I did not hear my heart.
The intensity created by the tremolo picking informs listeners that the crux of lines such as “I am tired of struggling/And the rain is beating down on me” reflect the honest-to-self thoughts of the song’s speaker. From “tired of struggling,” the struggle comes with two layers of meaning: struggling against the current and struggling against the tension of the relationship. But what’s really eating the speaker alive is that “the rain is beating down on me,” a line involving the speaker stewing over the consequences of the epiphany from the a-chorus. In fact, the rain itself symbolizes the bitter truth, indicating a degree of grief that all the speaker’s efforts to sustain the relationship meant nothing.
In itself, that’s a chilling thought considering that the next line (“I tried to be the way that he wanted me to be”) provides evidence of how hard the speaker worked to keep the relationship afloat. The detail that renders this chilling—the self-blaming of “tried” which suggests that the relationship would’ve worked out if she put in more effort—is that this constitutes the clearest evidence of Stockholm syndrome in the entire song. In fact, the undertones of Stockholm syndrome become compounded by “be the way that he wanted me to be.” Not only does that phrase add another self-suppressing element that likely fueled the escalating tensions, but it also implies that the speaker’s personality isn’t genuine since it was forged by the desires of the man.
Simply the manner that the b-chorus ends (“I did not hear the pin drop down/I did not hear my heart”) permits further evidence of self-hatred in the song. First there’s “did not hear,” where the speaker chastises herself over a failure of her senses. Then, there’s “the pin drop down,” an image of something that should register as arbitrary, but that it became a matter of life and death reflects how much tension existed in this relationship. Finally, there’s the line “I did not hear my heart” (that’s immediately followed by all instruments cutting off), a statement which indicates a sense of regret over starting the loveless relationship at all. But it’s also a statement with a morbid touch considering that physical death involves the stopping of a heartbeat, so it’s a line which operates on two levels simultaneously.
The last verse of the song (at 2:41) appears during a quieter section, is a rather long one, and definitely solidifies the speaker’s state-of-mind regarding her situation:
I have not lived and loved enough. Things are left unsaid, undone. It was not meant to be like this [rehtegot su peek nac gnihton] Drifting off without a kiss. We built our love, we built our ark. Nothing ends before it starts. I cannot feel my arms and legs. I don't deserve this bitter end.
The bracketed passage is my crude representation of a musical detail so well-hidden that I didn’t know about it until it was called to my attention: a deliberate use of backmasking (a hidden message only traceable by playing the song backwards). Backwards, the bracketed passage reads “nothing can keep us together.” One method of reading that phrase is that it’s the ghost-wife remembering the words that were likely screamed at her by her husband when he murdered her. In that sense, it utilizes audio recording techniques as an analogue for memory, traumatic suppression of memory, and remembrance.
As for the lines themselves, the first one (“I have not lived and loved enough”) gives off the feeling of self-deception. Just the phrase “not lived and loved enough” indicates that the speaker feels as if she were owed both life and love, but that’s not how reality works. Considering that she once felt like love could be faked, that’s not a good sign. Mostly because if the love’s faked, the tension will eventually reveal the cracks—tension that can result in something as tragic as this.
Following up on that comes the line “Things are left unsaid, undone.” Here, “left unsaid” offers one result of the speaker’s self-suppression. But now she backpedals on it and feels as if she were honest, the relationship (if not her life) could’ve been saved. Which comes across as cruelly ironic with “undone” since the unravelling of all the effort which she exerted on the relationship means something rather dark—her plans only guaranteed her own death.
And that’s a pity since the next two lines (“It was not meant to be like this/Drifting off without a kiss”) develop the idea of the speaker’s plans crumbling. For instance, the phrase “was not meant” suggests a short-sightedness in the speaker insomuch as she didn’t see that things could end up as ugly as they did. This gets followed up by the double-meaning of “Drifting off,” a phrase simultaneously referring to the river flow and to sleep in the Shakesperean sense of death (see “Sleep Together” and “Sleep of No Dreaming”[10]). But death and short-sightedness converge via “without a kiss,” which shows how short-sighted the speaker’s concerns were and reflects how abruptly death can occur—before the kiss of death can happen.
Where short-sightedness morphs into a reflection of former ignorance is exhibited by the next line: “We built our love, we built our ark.” To start off, “built our love” imbues the whole relationship with the sense of fabrication in that it was literally built from a calculated decision to settle with each other. That’s a far-cry from the emotions that are traditionally at the crux of love—especially in a storybook-esque setting (making this song more in-line with the Brothers Grim than a standard fairy tale). This phrase carries over into the next one: “built our ark.” Here, there’s a woefully-misguided comparison to the biblical ark of Noah. Considering that this comparison suggests that the speaker once believed that the act of shacking up together would safeguard the two of them from the outside world, it’s safe to say that the opposite happened. Darkly ironic that she sought protection from outside yet the dangers on the inside ended up doing her in.
These last three lines (“Nothing ends before it starts/I cannot feel my arms and legs/I don’t deserve this bitter end”) offer a past-and-present development which indicates that the speaker has grown amidst the arguments with herself that have occurred throughout the song. Beginning with “Nothing ends before it starts,” there’s the familiar presence of denial regarding how things turned out—the last vestige of her pre-murder blissful ignorance. The next phrase—that the speaker “cannot feel my arms and legs”—imbues two things to the murder which function as a catalyst for a changed character: spiritual numbing from the cold river-water and an emotional numbing from how these events seemed to blindside her. Then, the final attempt to hold on to her pre-murder blissful ignorance—the phrasing of “don’t deserve”—registers as pathetic. Namely because whether or not the speaker deserved murder is an irrelevant factor at the present moment—conventional morality doesn’t take precedence over matters of tension and heightened emotion. But reason ultimately wins out a little too late via the phrase “this bitter end,” where the speaker acknowledges and (at least unconsciously) accepts that this can’t be changed, so there’s little use stewing about it—except out of self-hatred.
The song’s final verse bleeds into a second a-chorus. But instead of another saxophone solo, the second a-chorus ends up being followed by a guitar solo (at 3:55) from Guthrie Govan—probably the best one on the album found on a song not named “Drive Home.” Which leads into the second b-chorus, whose abrupt stop functions the same as the first b-chorus—except that that’s how the song ends.
“The Watchmaker” (11:42)
Notable for containing a significant influence from Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, “The Watchmaker” appears simple at first glance, but that simplicity’s deceptive. The song’s also a case where musical opposites are united: simple and complex, beautiful and sinister, soft and heavy, and light and dark. Out of any song on The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories), “The Watchmaker” constitutes as the one a listener may not like at first, but will warm up to upon repeated listens of the album. It’s not a favorite track of mine on the album, but it’s does contain some of Steven’s most intoxicating vocal harmonies—in two sections where Steven himself has claimed the influences of both The Beach Boys and Crosby Stills and Nash influence on the composition of the vocal harmonies.
Lyrically speaking, there’s common territory between “The Pin Drop” and “The Watchmaker” since both constitute as post-mortem ballads and both involve a relationship of convenience backfiring. However, “The Watchmaker” differs in both perspective (that of the man), circumstances, and sentiment. In this regard, “The Watchmaker” functions as a more powerful character sketch since (apart from the death) it can easily happen to many listeners. This song manages to evoke pity for the title character while simultaneously leaving listeners to denounce his actions.
In terms of the song’s Genesis influence, nowhere is that more evident than in the folk-like guitar which opens the song. It’s a practically Hackett-esque fingerpicked melody (in fact, it’d fit right at home on Foxtrot or Selling England by the Pound[11]) that serves to lull the listener into a false sense of security. Shortly afterwards, another gorgeous fingerpicked guitar melody forms a seamless transition from the intro to Steven’s first verse (at 0:30):
The watchmaker works all day and long into the night. He pieces things together despite his failing sight.
Though all the cogs connect with such poetic grace, Time has left its curse upon this place.
Right out of the gate, the opening line (“The watchmaker works all day and long into the night”) factors into the song’s themes. That the character is a “watchmaker” proves a thematically appropriate occupation since matters of both time and artificiality are pressing concerns throughout the song. Speaking of time, the next phrase—“works all day and long into the night”—not only offers a unspoken implication that the natural process of aging renders all his effort futile, but also points towards the real ghost of the song: the ghost of lost time. In essence, the real ghost of “The Watchmaker” is also the real ghost of the title track.
The song’s other large them (artificiality) converges with time via the line “He pieces things together despite his failing sight.” Indeed, the notion of “pieces things together” conveys that the watchmaker—by controlling and forging materials into place instead of going with the flow—actively resists the tyranny of time. Alas, “failing sight” provides a physical indicator of the ravages of time’s ironbound grip and evidence of the toll that lost time has had on the watchmaker.
These already-present connotations of futility, artificiality, nature, and time become part of the language itself in the next line: “Though all the cogs connect with such poetic grace.” It’s no accident that the conjunctive “Though” sets up a qualifier that ends up diminishing the line. Appropriately so since “all the cogs connect” reflects a skill in the artificial since the watchmaker uses mechanical parts. However, the meat-and-potatoes of the linguistic qualities is indebted to the phrase “with such poetic grace.” Due to the word “poetic” signaling the presence of language, the formation of language itself—akin to the creation of a poem—becomes the basis for a complex, Saussure-esque[12] metaphor which suggests the futility of the watchmaker’s life’s work.
That previous line’s conjunctive must be taken into account whenever reading the line “Time has left its curse upon this place.” Here, “Time has left its curse” spells out everything entailed by the relation between “works all day and long into the night” and the notion of “The Watchmaker” being a song about the ghost of lost time. After that, the verse concludes via “upon this place,” a phrase that—given that the life’s work of the watchmaker occurs here—states that the place itself symbolically mirrors the inner thoughts of the watchmaker himself.
What feels like a key change arrives (at 1:01) on the same measure that Steven begins his second verse, indicating a transition from scene-setting to character study:
Each hour becomes another empty space to fill. Wasted with the care and virtues of his skill.
Echoes of prior thematic content pervade the line “Each hour becomes another empty space to fill,” but now they’re inextricably tied to the watchmaker’s character. And justly so since the passage of time—especially a constantly-repeating yet minuscule amount such as “Each hour”—remains a factor which molded who the watchmaker became as the months turned into years and the years into decades. Therefore, it’s appropriate that the process of “another space to fill”—itself a cold-and-calculated way of describing the passage of time—is one that’s as mechanical-sounding as “becomes.” That one word alone denotes that the watchmaker’s clinical methods end up diminishing the importance out of time—perhaps due to a jaded quality that’s exacerbated by age.
Or perhaps (as the line “Wasted with the care and virtues of his skill”) the jaded quality stems from the watchmaker’s occupation. The word “Wasted” implies that being a watchmaker proves a waste of his talents. Especially since—for all his ambitions—he was never in a position to change the world or leave a mark. Since he’s a watchmaker and can only keep a measure of time (instead of alter or change it), his own occupation dooms him to the obscurity of the street musician in “Luminol.” Another linkage between time and the watchmaker’s character—the phrase “the care and virtues of his skill”—also informs listeners that the watchmaker’s clinical temperament enabled the relationship to span decades instead of end in violence like “The Pin Drop.”
Following the tempo slowing down and then picking back up, Steven wastes no time getting back into describing the character:
The watchmaker buries something deep within his thoughts. A shadow on the staircase of someone from before.
This thing is broken now and cannot be repaired. Fifty years of compromise and aging bodies shared.
The topic at hand switches from time to love the moment that the first line (“The watchmaker buries something deep within his thoughts”) commences. Still, to describe the deceased wife as “something” reinforces the watchmaker’s cold-and-calculated character in a grim manner—by suggesting that she never meant anything to him and that the relationship was borne out of convenience. However, the phrase “deep within his thoughts” suggests either one or two memories that he’s burying: the memory of murdering his wife or the memory of his wife. The latter suggests that the watchmaker didn’t murder his wife. This proves a point of contention for the song since—unlike “The Pin Drop”—there’s no hard evidence that murder has occurred in “The Watchmaker.” While the song does make it clear that the watchmaker’s wife is dead, the advanced age of both parties can just as easily mean that the wife died of natural causes, old age, or a disease. Given that Steven’s flat-out said that the watchmaker did murder his wife, I’m willing to invoke Roland Barthes’s ‘death of the author’ theory and say that Steven’s wrong (I never said that Steven was perfect) on this one—I don’t think that the watchmaker murdered his wife. I simply don’t think that the watchmaker’s temperament coheres with the idea of him going into a fit of rage, but I’d be foolish to say that isn’t a possible interpretation of the lyrics since some lines are ambiguous enough to leave the idea open.
Such ambiguity continues in how one reads the following line: “A shadow on the staircase of someone from before.” If a listener believes that the watchmaker did kill his wife, then the phrase “shadow on the staircase” incriminates pretty heavily since it points to the watchmaker having stuffed the wife’s body underneath the floorboards. However, if you’re like me and think that the watchmaker didn’t kill his wife, then the word “shadow” also conveys a spectral presence which—apart from foreshadowing the ending—suggests that the wife received a proper burial.
Further evidence can be drawn from the next line: “This thing is broken now and cannot be repaired.” At this point, the “thing” refers to bodies (of the watchmaker and his wife), a watch, or both. This effectively utilizes a broken watch as a metaphor for a dead body by noting that time’s run out for both of them. However, the wording of “thing” serves as a hinge for whether or not the watchmaker did or didn’t kill his wife—depending on why the depersonalization is used. If the depersonalized “thing” acts as a sick coping mechanism, one can say that the watchmaker’s grieving and most likely didn’t kill his wife. But if that same word reflects that the watchmaker never cared for her and only married her for status, then that may imply that he did kill his wife.
Regardless of caring or uncaring for the wife, the next line (“Fifty years of compromise and aging bodies shared”) holds new nuggets of info. For starters, “Fifty years” outright states the length of the relationship—at minimum, these two are in their seventies. However, “compromise” confirms the suspicions that love never factored into a decision to marry—although the wife’s actions can be read in a way that suggests that she grew to love him over the course of fifty years. As for “aging bodies shared,” that utilizes a physical indicator of time’s ravages—much like “failing sight”—in order to further the theme of regret. In those three words, the takeaway entails that the watchmaker wasted his life in two ways: fritter away at something that didn’t matter (watchmaking) and settling for what didn’t feel right (the loveless marriage).
Another key change reveals two of the most revealing lines in the song so far—lines which deftly illustrate the insidious yet tragic themes of the song:
Eliza dear, you know there's something I should say. I never really loved you, but I'll miss you anyway.
This first line of the section—“Eliza dear, you know there’s something I should say”—operates as a microcosm of ambiguity. First up to bat comes “Eliza dear,” the first instance of the wife’s name appearing in the song. Here, the formal “dear” connotes a closeness which is both supported by the “Fifty years of compromise” and undercut by what the watchmaker will say in the next line. Second at par is “you know,” a phrase implying that a restrained version of the tension exhibited in “The Pin Drop” lasted all fifty years of this relationship, but they kept it so underneath the surface that Eliza died of old age instead of at a violent outburst of the watchmaker. Caveat number three—the phrase “something I should say”—proves telling even without considering what the watchmaker “should say.” Simply the fact that he feels that he “should say” this nugget of information points to a sense of guilt that’s been eating the watchmaker alive. However, that the nature of that guilt remains ambiguous—guilt over not truly loving her, guilt over murdering her, or guilt over both. The song never gives a clear-cut answer, but the lyrics provide all the pieces necessary for a listener to draw his/her own conclusions.
And then there’s the matter that the next line (“I never really loved you, but I’ll miss you anyway”) throws in a couple of new ways to read the song which weren’t hinted at before. The bone of contention centers on the phrase “I never really loved you,” but especially on one word: “really.” That lone word’s vital since it suggests that the watchmaker did love Eliza in some way, but not in a way conducive to marriage, romance, or sex. One possible reading of that implies that their relationship was more platonic in nature and that marriage only happened for the social benefits. Another method of reading that entails that the watchmaker’s a closeted gay man who married Eliza (who may/may not be a lesbian) as a beard. Admittedly, that second one may count as jumping-the-shark, but the song leaves itself open to interpretation. Especially in conjunction with two other factors: the album’s storybook-esque quality and the song’s indefinite historical time period. Considering both, “The Watchmaker” may occur during a period of time where homosexuals had to hide their sexuality—sometimes via a sham marriage between a gay man and a lesbian woman. What that means in interpreting the song is that any “love” here is strictly platonic and/or between friends due to incompatible sexual orientation.
On the topic of this verse’s final phrase (“miss you anyway”), that serves as another aspect of ambiguity. Primarily in the debate on whether or not the watchmaker killed Eliza or not. If one believes the watchmaker did kill Eliza, then this phrase reflects a guilty conscience. If not, then the same phrase indicates that Eliza died of age-related causes.
Following the ending of these lyrics, an extended instrumental interlude begins (at 2:06). At this point, Theo’s flute takes prominence while Steven provides an acoustic picking pattern. A short time later, Adam’s piano (at 2:37) enters the fray and brings additional shades of color into the brew before the song returns (at 2:53) to the major scales of the intro. That allows for a sharp contrast considering that the verses were in a minor scale.
It’s over this reprise of the intro that an over-dubbed chorus of Steven’s deliver a jaw-droppingly poignant section of vocal harmonies. Once a mellotron joins the familiar backing of piano, guitar, and flute, there’s a point where the symbolic resonance of this section becomes clear. These harmonies—when juxtaposed with the minor-scale figure played by Adam’s piano—symbolize the watchmaker going mad from either lingering guilt, a lifetime of regrets, or a mixture of both.
As the harmonization-section ceases, the strumming pattern (at 4:07) of the opening chords reappears only for Marco’s drums to enter the fray—a section symbolizing the watchmaker briefly calming himself only for tension to bubble under the surface and erupt in his face. Said eruption arrives thanks to a new rhythmic sequence (at 4:22) that the addition of Marco’s steady drum beat manages to imbue with an urgency absent from earlier parts of the song. That effect’s only multiplied once mellotrons act as a build-up and a backing for three solo: one by Theo’s flute (at 4:42), another from Guthrie’s guitar-work (at 5:08), and a last one from Theo’s saxophone (at 5:44).
During all three solos, the progression of two specific chords played on the mellotron (the earliest example comes towards the end of Theo’s flute solo) resemble a familiar source. Namely that the progression in question recalls a chord voicing played by Richard Wright in Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.” The prog-head and Steven Wilson-ite in me can’t help but think that that resemblance is probably deliberate since Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon[13]was Steven’s introduction to prog. Even if that’s not the reason for the Pink Floyd callback, there’s also the detail of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” itself—a song whose motifs of regret and lamentation are shared by the themes of “The Watchmaker.” Sure, the root of the regrets in “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” (a former bandmate whose descent into madness forced the rest of the band to abandon him[14]) differ radically from that of “The Watchmaker,” but there’s common themes between the two that the resemblance in chords ends up drawing upon.
Once the solos wrap up, a section led by Adam’s piano arpeggios (at 6:11) forms the musical framework for Steven’s third verse:
You were just meant to be temporary while I waited for gold. We filled up the years and I found that I liked having someone to hold.
Regret comes screaming back into full-force via the line “You were just meant to be temporary while I waited for gold.” Here, the phrase “were just meant to be temporary” makes it clear that the watchmaker harbored some degree of resentment which didn’t allow him to fully respect her. In fact, the watchmaker meant to find another woman or another man (if one decides to latch on to the notion that the watchmaker’s gay), but life has other plans and people have the tendency to function irrationally—wasting one’s own life certainly constitutes as irrational behavior. Furthering these character flaws comes the phrase “while I waited for gold,” a line which illustrates that “The Watchmaker” remains indefinite in historical time period—if one thinks the song occurs in the distant past (or in a storybook chivalric fantasy), “gold” can refer to money used to pay off dowry. With this consideration, money and women are both seen as a reward. This means that the watchmaker’s antiquated view of women is indebted to the cold-and-calculated procedures of his discipline and how those procedures seep over into how he views everything. This illustrates his folly: a coldly-rational view doesn’t gel with areas where emotions reign supreme.
However, the next two lines (“We filled up the years and I found that/I liked having someone to hold”) partly defuses and partly supports the clinical views of the previous line. Lending credence towards the watchmaker’s problematic views on women is the phrase “filled up the years.” That phrase implies that an emptiness existed in their lives that’s attributable to a mechanical and clinical view of love which stripped away all the substance from them until they were as grey as the watches he made. A phrase that muddies the water with uncertainty is “I found that/I liked having someone to hold.” Such a phrase suggests that both participants in the relationship slowly grew complacent. Additionally, there’s also the implication that that complacency became a drug of sorts which the watchmaker never kicked—mostly due to fear of what would arise from isolation. This entails that—on one level—the watchmaker did grow to love Eliza. Not necessarily romantically or sexually, but at least platonically.
As more sinister voicings begin popping up in the piano melodies, Steven’s verses move forward regardless:
But for you I had to wait. Until one day it was too late.
The line “But for you, I had to wait” contains a crucial start (the conjunctive “But”) that quantifies the limitations of the previous three lines—those lines may have depicted a hunky-dory fantasy for the watchmaker, but the ravages of time prevented them from coming to fruition. This extends to “for you,” where the “you” refers to either the person he wanted to ditch Eliza for or implies that he had ditched someone for Eliza fifty years ago. Ultimately, the phrase “had to wait” (especially “had”) suggests a degree of necessity conveying how deeply the watchmaker feared isolation—that he settled for short-term comfort instead of long-term happiness.
How this line of “Until one day it was too late” connects to the last (with the connector “Until”) means that it’s a direct continuation. First, the “Until” of “Until one day” suggests that the watchmaker grew too complacent and waited too long. As for “it was too late,” there’s two ways to read that line. The first—that the “day” signals the day that Eliza died—proved the more obvious one. But the second implies that the “day” in question was that which the watchmaker would be perceived as the male equivalent of an ‘old maid’ were he to divorce Eliza—guaranteeing that he’d have to wait forever.
Once those lyrics conclude (at 7:40), an instrumental interlude appears out-of-the-blue. This time, Marco’s jazz-based drumming—along with arpeggios from Steven’s acoustic guitar and Adam’s piano—form the backbone of the section. And this section also marks Steven’s second portion of vocal harmonies—still as jaw-dropping as before, but now the tone’s distinctly ethereal.
However, the portion of vocal harmonies abruptly end (at 8:52) once a new rhythmic pattern becomes established. At this juncture, Marco’s drums, Adam’s keyboards/synthesizers, and Nick’s bass proceed to weave in-and-out of each other while maintaining the rhythmic pattern. This lasts for nearly a minute—subtly rising in intensity the whole time—before Adam’s organ (at 9:46) pounds a cacophonous set of chords at such a high volume that one can mistake it for a highly-distorted guitar upon a first listen. To an unprepared listener, those organ chords will cause one to jump out of their seats due to how sudden they appear. But these ‘scare-chords’ do have a purpose—they’re a musical representation of Eliza’s ghost returning from the grave to take her husband with her.
But those frightening chords of Adam’s abruptly give way (at 9:51) to Steven’s final set of lyrics in the song:
Cogs and levers mesh. We are bound in death. Melt the silver down. I'm still inside you.
Within the line “Cogs and levers mesh,” there’s two prominent elements at play. The first—“cogs and levers”—functions as vaginal and phallic symbols which signify the genders of Eliza and the watchmaker (admittedly a problematic notion when factoring in the presence of the trans community, where genitalia isn’t synonymous with gender). One can perceive the problematic elements of that phrase and “mesh” as the watchmaker’s perspective revealing itself. As for “mesh,” the unification of a sexual embrace is equated with the equality that all human beings share in death. Problematic since it assumes that all people wish to have sex—glossing over the entire asexual community. That’s despite the sentiment of ‘all people die sometime’ constituting as Steven’s naturalistic leanings from “Deform to Form a Star”[15]seeping into the lyrics.
Going off of the previous line, “We are bound in death” starts with a plural that refers to both Eliza and the watchmaker. Then, there’s “bound,” a phrase in which the union described by “mesh” becomes a curse to the watchmaker. That curse is a prison made by his own inaction. Since the song leaves open the possibility that Eliza fell in love with the watchmaker over the fifty-year period, it’s fitting that she’s the one which has the last laugh and takes control of the situation. But that control—as implied by “Melt the silver down”—does have a dark side. Namely that an act of material destruction as reductive as “Melt the silver down” illustrates the futility of the watchmaker’s entire life while the implied ghostly possession connotes that the watchmaker has no volition in the afterlife, either.
But all three previous lines factor into how one reads the song’s final line: “I’m still inside you.” The notion of being “inside” someone applies on several levels. One level relates to the sexual dimension exhibited by “mesh.” Another level pertains to the metaphysical dimension which possibly suggests that Eliza’s ghost isn’t only possessing the watchmaker, but that the method of taking her husband’s soul involves the watchmaker’s suicide. A third level links to the lingering guilt regarding not truly loving her and/or murdering her—especially with how that guilt has been eating away at the watchmaker’s conscience.
“The Raven That Refused to Sing” (7:57) [link is to the song’s music video—done in a storybook style and a visual depiction of the song’s lyrics]
The album’s title track takes a twist on the motif of ravens utilized in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” in order to craft one of Steven’s most emotionally-devastating set of lyrics—in one of the greatest songs that Steven Wilson has ever written. That draining quality isn’t due to one thing, but it’s the result of several smaller things coming together: the amount of times the speaker lies to himself, the sad state he’s in, the amount of times a listener can see right through him, the sense that he’s wasted his life, the sheer impact of one specific loss (namely a sister) in his life, that all this remains conveyed by simple language (every word in the song are made up of two syllables or less), and the change from a minor key to a major coming across as setting up false hopes that the song’s ending will shatter—a movement facilitated by the violent tremolo strumming in the song’s outro. And the scariest thing comes from how simple Steven makes all of that look—it’s one of the greatest songs that Steven’s ever written and it’s probably the easiest song on the album to make a cover of, but perhaps the hardest to duplicate.
The song starts with a long and slow piano introduction before Steven croons alongside the piano part:
Sing for me. [x2] You can come with me. You can live with me. Heal my soul. Make me whole.
One note of important context that bears addressing is that the titular raven has already appeared in the scene just before the song has even begun.
Another note of context influences the very first line: “Sing for me.” Particularly the word “Sing” since the act of singing carries special significance for the old man in relation to both his past and the bond he shared with his deceased sister. Considering this, even details as minuscule as the use of “for” instead of “to” carries a lot of significance. In fact, this minor substitution conveys a craving and a sense of yearning in the old man that suggests that he’s deceiving himself by thinking that the raven symbolizes his deceased sister. That the line ends with “me” reinforces the self-centeredness of the speaker’s desires.
The self-deception carries over from the previous line and seeps into the second line: “You can come with me.” Most notably via “can,” a phrase entailing that for the old man to think this is possible, he has to lie to himself. That’s a sharp difference between any listeners, who know that this raven’s just a raven. Afterwards, “come” serves as a literal beckoning in order to suggest that the old man believes that his own autonomy holds more importance that that of others. Since Steven’s as vegetarian as Paul McCartney, that sentiment also applies to animals. But like the last line, “with me” concludes this line via a note of self-centeredness. However, the construction of “with” posits the self-centeredness as something beneficial to the other person/animal, characterizing the old man as fully-willing to resort to manipulation if that's what it takes to get his sister back. All that factors into the irony behind the “live” in “You can live with me,” a dark irony given that the old man thinks he’s talking to someone who’s dead and has returned in order to bring him to the afterlife.
Line number four—“Heal my soul”—points to something that’s troubled the old man regarding the loss of his sister and towards how deeply the loss hurt him. It’s almost as if she were something more than a sister due to the line’s implication that her death left the type of would that’s unable to ever fade—much like the lover’s wound described in “Drive Home.” However, the relation of blood means that I’m not ruling out the possibility of the old man and the sister having engaged in incest at some point before death. The song doesn’t give a specific age as to when the sister died, so any potential incest may have occurred before the Westermarck Effect (wherein people living together in the first few years of life become desensitized to sexual attraction) set in. One reason that I’d caution one from insisting on that is that there’s no direct suggestion that these two have behaved like the speaker and the cousin in “Trains”[16]
Regardless of the potential incest connotations, the next line—“Make me whole”—further emphasizes aspects of grieving. So much so that “Make” suggests that the old man’s unable to move on from the loss at this point of his life. Mostly because the grieving and the coping mechanisms have become so hardwired across the decades that the old man can’t recover on his own—he’ll need a push in the right direction. And then there’s the word “whole” and its connotations that—without the sister—the old man’s an incomplete person. On one level, that notion speaks to deficiencies in the old man of either morality or resulting from trauma. On another, to a sense of neediness or obsession. But a third level leaves one to interpret the song through an incestuous lens if one wishes to do so—I’m not judging you if you do!
Something very interesting comes about in the officially-printed lyrics at this point:
(the raven sings in a dream)
This isn’t actually uttered in the song. However, it should be thought of like a stage direction in a play—not spoken aloud, but vital context towards what’s going on. This is how the old man makes the association that he does between the physical raven and the raven in the dream. In fact, the old man likely believes that the dreams (which occurred before the events of the song) were prophetic—a notion dating back as far as Old Norse myth.
Steven’s next set of lyrics lets us know just about all that listeners need to know regarding the situation:
Sister, I lost you When you were still a child. But I need you now And I need our former life. I'm afraid to wake. I'm afraid to love.
The tragedy of these lyrics becomes explicitly clear in the first two lines of this verse: “Sister, I lost you/When you were still a child.” Within an instant, “Sister” provides lyrical evidence of a familial relation with the old man. Since the old man’s addressing the raven as “Sister,” he thinks the raven is his sister—confirming an earlier notion within the lyrics. Then, “lost” allows evidence that the sister had died, not merely ran away. But the haunting part comes from the last phrase of “were still a child.” Not only does this phrase demonstrate the length of time that the sister’s been dead (as long as the marriage in “The Watchmaker,” if not longer), but it informs listeners that the old man’s harbored this sense of grief and yearning for almost his entire life. In a way, this old man never managed to live life at all—and his sister lived even less.
That haunting notion—that the old man wasted his entire life—rears its head around for the next two lines: “But I need you now/And I need our former life.” At this juncture, “need you now” conveys that the old man wants his sister with such a degree of desperation since he feels like he’s been unable to function ever since she died. Additionally, the phrase also indicates that the ravages of age aren’t something that the old man wishes to face alone. Both ideas point to an unanswered question: which is the more lamentable fate—the watchmaker or the old man? However, things escalate with the idea that the old man needs “our former life.” Not only does that phrase entail that the old man wants his sister revived from the dead, but he wants everything to be exactly the same as it was when they were either kids. Unfortunately, that’s impossible as the decades of grief have utterly changed him.
Two end-results of those decades becomes evident via the final two lines of this verse: “I’m afraid to wake/I’m afraid to love.” Here, “afraid to wake” reflects a fear of moving on from the loss since the old man feels that if he did, he’d forget his beloved sister in the process. Furthermore, the phrase “afraid to love” entails that to love or connect with anyone in any capacity would devalue the importance of how he valued his sister---if one considers this an incestuous relationship, this is another line to consider.
The third set of lines in the song are worth looking into for what they provide in terms of character development:
Just because I'm weak, You can steal my dreams. You can reach inside my head And you can put your song there instead. Please come to me. Please stay with me.
For the first two lines of “Just because I’m weak,/You can steal my dreams,” notions of religion, age, obsession, perception, trauma and prophecy run rampant. Starting with “Just,” there’s a layer of ambiguity since that word can mean “simply” or “rightly.” If one chooses the latter, than “Just” takes on a layer of religious significance in that the old man acts as someone who’s penitent. Afterwards, “weak” also operates as dual-layered in terms of meaning. Namely that that word acts as a reflection of both the old man’s age and of the perceived wound linked to “Heal my soul.” These two lines culminated with “can steal my dreams,” a statement which points towards an obsession regarding the deceased sister and a feeling as if the old man’s dreams are prophetic—a detail associated with the ‘stage direction’ from earlier.
However, the two lines which follow (“You can reach inside my head/And you can put your song there instead”) take the significance of the dreams and undercut it. To ascertain why, chalk up the phrase “can reach inside my head” as another example of the old man’s self-deceit. Primarily due to the fact that the old man’s assuming that—because of the dreams—the raven/his sister has telepathy. Such a notion suggests that the old man’s willing suspension of disbelief is malleable—he’s willing to bend anything so long as there’s a chance to fulfill his want of everything becoming right, but that’s impossible. Regarding, the phrase “put your song there” links to a comment of Steven’s—that the song of the sister had a calming effect on the old man in his youth. From that, one can guess that the old man misses that, something that’s compounded by his lifetime of unremovable anxieties. Then, the wording of “instead” at the end of the line leaves one to imply the answer to the question ‘Instead of what?’ Whatever the answer is, it’s likely linked to the hole that also fueled phrases such as “Heal my soul.”
All of this—the yearning, the self-deception, the grieving, the pseudo-prophecy, and the anxieties—approach a brink with the last two lines of this verse: “Please come to me/Please stay with me.” Of special notice comes Steven’s agonized method of singing “Please”—unlike anything he’s ever sung and likely the most torturous he could sound without screaming. That method of singing reflects the emotions of the old man in a moment of panic from the net total of the pain from all of the previously-mentioned factors—it’s the desperation of the loss reaching the breaking point. As for what follows, “come to me” suggests that the old man has a compulsion towards drawing the song out of the raven—thereby attaching a symbolic significance to the bird that isn’t there. But this becomes compounded by “stay with me” and its presentation of a new worry—that the raven is his sister and she’ll just fly back. In some respect, that’s an even sadder thought than the raven being just a raven since it implies that the old man’s lifetime of grief meant nothing.
While the final lyrics of the song don’t develop things as far as the previous lyrics, they make for a fitting final note for the song. Especially since these are the only lyrics that come after the key change from a minor key to a major key—illustrating the speaker’s delusion just before the ending of the song pulls the rug out from under him:
Sing to me raven I miss her so much. Sing to me Lily I miss you so much.
Breaking down the first half (“Sing to me raven/I miss her so much”) of the outro refrain involves picking apart the various methods of relevant symbolism attached to “raven.” Not only does Poe’s “The Raven” factor into the equation, but so do other considerations. One such idea comes from black constituting a color that symbolizes mourning—a notion which pertains to the old man’s perpetual state of grief. Another owes a debt to the raven’s association in Greek mythology with Apollo (the god of prophecy) as a symbol of bad luck—again, a notion relevant to the old man, but also to the long-dead sister. A third and final symbol for ravens involves their perception within the myths of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest as a Loki-esque trickster—a particularly ironic notion given that the song involves the self-deceit of the old man. Then, there’s the detail of “her,” wherein the old man has an unconscious inking that he’s been tricked, but the strength of his yearning outweighs the inkling.
But then comes the final lines of the entire song—“Sing to me Lily,/I miss you so much”—and their rich significance. Mostly due to the detail of “Lily” revealing the name of the old man’s deceased sister for the first time. The name of “Lily” carries symbolic significance to lilies in four ways: an association with funerals, a symbol of humility, a symbol of devotion, and a sign that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death. Considering all of that, it’s fitting that the last major phrase of the song—“you”—reinforces the yearning of the old man for Lily. In fact, that phrase outright confirms that the old man thinks the raven and Lily are one and the same—a connection with symbolic linkage considering that lilies and ravens have associations with death.
Final Thoughts:
One could make the simple claim that Steven embraced an old-fashioned musical style instead of truly evolve for The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories). Those naysayers miss the point of the album—like Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 1983 album Texas Flood, this album’s an unabashed throwback to a style of music deemed out-of-touch when the album was released. However, this album does something new within the antiquated style—position the old-fashioned touches under the veneer of a ghost-themed storybook.
In this respect, Steven succeeds and expands upon the jazz-tinged stylings of Grace for Drowning while using the confines of a single album to make his songwriting tighter. That last quality reaches a fever pitch with tracks such as “Luminol,” “Drive Home,” and the title track. These three songs alone mark some of Steven’s most focused songwriting yet, along with a sonically-rich palate of instrumentation that’s only Grace for Drowning has as a precedent in Steven’s catalogue.
However, Steven’s next album—Hand. Cannot. Erase.—would utilize the expansive soundscapes of this album and apply them to a modern context. Along with providing what may count as the greatest album Steven Wilson has ever written—dethroning contenders such as Porcupine Tree’s In Absentia, No-Man’s last two albums, and Storm Corrosion’s self-titled. Given that the album’s also Steven’s most complex and inter-textual, it may end up functioning as one of the longest reviews I will ever write.
Endnotes:
[1] From the albums Close to the Edge (1972) and Fragile (1971), both by British progressive rock pioneers Yes.
[2] Ed Wood: Edward Davis Wood Jr (1924-1978), a director whose filmography includes Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), a film deemed one of the pinnacles of ‘so-bad-its-good’ cinema; his life story was made into an Oscar-winning film titled Ed Wood (1994) directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as the director.
[3] Magma: a French progressive rock band founded in Paris in 1969 by drummer Christian Vander who invented a language called Kobaïan using elements of Slavonic and Germanic languages. Vander writes all of Magma’s lyrics in Kobaïan—which tell a multi-album saga of galactic warfare, runaways, and human-alien relations. Magma’s style of music was so distinctive within progressive rock that it they were considered the pioneers of a sub-genre called Zeuhl, which is described by Pitchfork as “about what you’d expect an alien rock opera to sound like: massed, chanted choral motifs, martial, repetitive percussion, sudden bursts of explosive improve and just as unexpected lapses into eerie, minimalist trance-rock”
[4] Ikiru: a 1952 film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa about a terminally-ill businessman trying to redeem himself and make his last days meaningful. The image of the businessman on the swing of the playground he built (while in the rain) is probably one of Japanese cinema’s most iconic images.
[5] In the Court of the Crimson King: the 1969 debut album of British progressive rock pioneers King Crimson, often cited as the first album to crystallize all the core elements of progressive rock in one package.
[6] “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here”: from Porcupine Tree’s album Deadwing (2005); “The Incident”: the title track to Porcupine Tree’s tenth and final album (released in 2009).
[7] It helps that Steven is close friends with Mikael Akerfeldt, the guitarist/vocalist of the Swedish progressive rock/progressive death metal band.
[8] “His [Fitzgerald] talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wing s and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.”—a quote that boils down to Hemingway lambasting the then-deceased Fitzgerald as a colossal waste of talent.
[9] Lyric from the ending of Porcupine Tree’s “Mellotron Scratch,” from Deadwing (2005)
[10] Sleep in the Shakesperan sense: derived from Hamlet, namely the “To be or not to be speech”; “Sleep Together” and “Sleep of No Dreaming”: songs from Steven’s former band Porcupine Tree, from the albums Fear of a Blank Planet (2007) and Signify (1996).
[11] Foxtrot: fourth studio album by Genesis, released in 1972; Selling England by the Pound: fifth studio album by Genesis, released in 1973.
[12] Ferdinand Saussure: a Swiss linguist and semiotician (1857-1913) known as ‘the father of modern linguistics’ after his students compiled their notes for the Course in General Linguistics (1916), a posthumous release that radically altered what it meant to study language—to put it briefly.
[13] The Dark Side of the Moon: Pink Floyd’s 1973 album which has—despite only topping the chart for one week—remained on the Billboard 200 albums chart for over 900 weeks (over 17 years) and sold 45 million copies (making it the fourth highest-selling album of all time).
[14] “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”: a 26-minute song (split in half to act as bookends for their 1975 album Wish You Were Here) where—when it was recorded—Syd Barret (who they hadn’t seen since the split) abruptly walked into the studio. However, he had gained an ample amount of weight and had shaved off all the hair on his head (including eyebrows)—altering his appearance so drastically that his former bandmates didn’t recognize him at first; former bandmate: Syd Barrett (1946-2006), the original singer and guitarist for Pink Floyd whose departure was due to mental illness and excessive use of psychedelic drugs that likely exacerbated the mental illness; rest of the band: at that time, Pink Floyd consisted of guitarist David Gilmour (b. 1946), bassist Roger Waters (b. 1943) (who split vocal duties with Gilmour), drummer Nick Mason (b. 1944), and keyboardist Richard Wright (1943-2008); abandon: a decision that haunted the other members of Pink Floyd for the rest of their lives—despite the fact that there wasn’t anything they could do. They also felt guilt over their success with Dark Side of the Moon, feeling that Syd should’ve had the opportunity to share that success.
[15] “Deform to Form a Star”: the third track on Steven Wilson’s second solo album, Grace for Drowning (2011).
[16] “Trains”: the second track on Porcupine Tree’s In Absentia, where cousin/cousin incest is one of many readings of that song’s vague lyrics.
Next up to bat:
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1976)
Nine Inch Nails - Broken (1992)
Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015)
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - You're Gonna Get It! (1978)
Steven Wilson - To The Bone (2017)
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (1994)