Many metal songs incorporate poetry into their lyrics using a broad array of techniques, both textual and musical. This book develops a novel adaptation, appropriation, and quotation taxonomy that both expands our knowledge of how poetry is used in metal music and is useful for scholars across adaptation studies broadly. The text follows both a quantitative and a qualitative approach. It identifies 384 metal songs by 224 bands with intertextual ties to 146 poems written by fifty-one different poets, with a special focus on Edgar Allan Poe, John Milton's Paradise Lost and the work of WWI's War Poets. This analysis of transformational mechanisms allows poetry to find an afterlife in the form of metal songs and sheds light on both the adaptation and appropriation process and on the semantic shifts occasioned by the recontextualisation of the poems into the metal music culture. Some musicians reuse – and sometimes amplify – old verses related to politics and religion in our present times; others engage in criticism or simple contradiction. In some cases, the bands turn the abstract feelings evoked by the poems into concrete personal experiences. The most adventurous recraft the original verses by changing the point of view of either the poetic voice or the addressed actors, altering the vocaliser of the narrative or the gender of the protagonists. These mechanisms help metal musicians make the poems their own and adjust them to their artistic needs so that the resulting product is consistent with the expectations of the metal music culture.
Author(s): Arturo Mora-Rioja
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 332
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction: Why Poetry and Metal Music
1.1 On Metal Music and Metal Studies
1.2 Poetry as Music
1.3 Metal Music Embraces Poetry
1.4 On Metal Music’s Audience and Themes
1.5 On Metal Music and Its Subgenres
1.6 Defining a Transformation Taxonomy
References
Bibliography
Chapter 2: How Poetry Becomes Metal Music: Transformation Categories
2.1 Reproduction
2.1.1 “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” (William Wordsworth 1800) and “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” (Draconian 2003)
2.1.2 “I Felt a Funeral” (Emily Dickinson 1861) and “I Felt a Funeral” (Malnàtt 2008)
2.1.3 “The Hosting of the Sidhe” (W. B. Yeats 1906) and “Hosting of the Sidhe” (Primordial 2002)
2.1.4 “Eyes That Last I Saw in Tears” (T. S. Eliot 1936) and “Eyes That Last I Saw in Tears” (Delight 2000)
2.2 Retelling
2.2.1 “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1817) and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Iron Maiden 1984)
2.2.2 “Song of Myself” (Walt Whitman 1892) and “Song of Myself” (Nightwish 2011)
2.2.3 “You Left Me” (Emily Dickinson 1861) and “Elderberry and Lavender” (Lyriel 2011)
2.2.4 “Flow My Tears” (John Dowland 1596) and “Downvain” and “Darkness” (Aesma Daeva 1999)
2.3 Reelaboration
2.3.1 “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (Oscar Wilde 1898) and “Hands of Gold” (Delain 2016)
2.3.2 “O God of Earth and Altar” (G. K. Chesterton 1906) and “Revelations” (Iron Maiden 1983a)
2.3.3 “The Challenge of Thor” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1863) and “Stormgod” (Imperial Triumphant 2010)
2.3.4 “Ah the Shepherd’s Mournful Fate” (William Hamilton 1724) and “Black God” (My Dying Bride 1993)
2.4 Reorientation
2.4.1 “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1854) and “The Trooper” (Iron Maiden 1983b)
2.4.2 “The Lady of Shalott” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1842) and “Lady of Shalott” (A Dream of Poe 2010)
2.4.3 “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (Francis William Bourdillon 1899) and “Drawn to Black” (Insomnium 2006)
2.4.4 “The Raven” (Edgar Allan Poe 1845) and “Ravenheart” (Xandria 2004)
2.5 Citation
2.5.1 Venus and Adonis (William Shakespeare 1593) and “For My Fallen Angel” (My Dying Bride 1996)
2.5.2 “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” (Robert Herrick 1648) and “A Change of Seasons” (Dream Theater 1995)
2.5.3 The Waste Land (T. S. Eliot 1936) and “The Light at the Edge of the World” (Darkest Hour 2007)
2.5.4 “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (Dylan Thomas 1959) and “Resonance” (Within the Fall 2015)
2.6 “Having Pried to the Strata, Analyzed to a Hair”: Analysis
References
Discography
Videography
Bibliography
Chapter 3: “Spirits of the Dead”: Metal Music and the Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe
3.1 On the Cultural Legacy of Poe’s Poetry
3.2 Transformations of Poe’s Poetry into Metal Music
3.2.1 Reproduction
“Alone” (1829) and “Alone” (Green Carnation 2006)
“Alone” (1829) and “Alone” (Arcturus 1997)
“Evening Star” (1827) and “Evening Star” (Ahab 2012)
3.2.2 Retelling
“The Conqueror Worm” (1843) and “The Conqueror Worm” (Odes of Ecstasy 2000)
“The City in the Sea” (1845) and “The City in the Sea” (The Ocean 2005)
“Eldorado” (1849) and “Eldorado” (Armageddon 2012b)
“The City in the Sea” (1845) and “City in the Sea” (Armageddon 2012c)
3.2.3 Reelaboration
“A Dream within a Dream” (1849) and “Dream Within a Dream” (Lyriel 2014)
“Annabel Lee” (1849) and “A Gothic Romance (Red Roses for the Devil’s Whore)” (Cradle of Filth 1996)
“Annabel Lee” (1849) and “Annabel Lee” (Lucyfire 2001)
3.2.4 Reorientation
“Eldorado” (1849) and “El Dorado” (Iron Maiden 2010)
“Alone” (1829) and “From Childhood’s Hour” (Circus Maximus 2007)
“Annabel Lee” (1849) and “Annabel Lee” (Akin 2001)
3.2.5 Citation
“A Dream within a Dream” (1849) and “Through the Looking Glass” (Symphony X 1998)
“A Dream within a Dream” (1849) and “Sweat” (Tool 1992)
“Imitation” (1827) and “Spirit” (Ghost 2014)
“Dreamland” (1844) and Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods (Carpathian Forest 1995a)
3.3 On “The Raven” and Popular (Metal) Culture
3.4 Transformations of “The Raven” into Metal Music
3.4.1 Reproduction
“The Raven: A Thrash Metal Opera” (Chris Violence 2016a)
“Raven” (Nimphaion 2018)
3.4.2 Retelling
“Nevermore” (Conducting from the Grave 2006)
“The Raven” (Aeternitas 2018b)
3.4.3 Reelaboration
“Les Posédes” (Agathodaimon 1999)
“Raven” (Grave Digger 2001)
3.4.4 Reorientation
“Quoth the Raven” (Eluveitie 2010)
“My Lost Lenore” (Tristania 1998)
3.4.5 Citation
“This Godless Endeavor” (Nevermore 2005)
“The Eclipse/The Raven” (Carpathian Forest 1995b)
3.5 “Deep into That Darkness Peering”: Analysis
References
Discography
Videography
Bibliography
Chapter 4: “Myself Am Hell”: Metal Music and Paradise Lost
4.1 On Paradise Lost and Its Cultural Implications
4.2 On Metal Music and Paradise Lost’s Cultural Legacy
4.3 Transformations of Paradise Lost into Metal Music
4.3.1 Retelling
“War in Heaven” (Warlord, 2002)
“Fumes She Holdeth” and “Crescent” (In Tha Umbra, 2000)
“Tenebrarum” (Forsaken, 2009)
4.3.2 Reelaboration
“Paradise Lost” (Burnt Church, 2012)
“Paradise Lost” (Night Screamer, 2019)
“Paradise Lost as Harmony Breaks” (Abandoned by Light, 2016)
4.3.3 Reorientation
“Paradise Lost” (Morgana Lefay, 1993)
“White Logic” (4th Dimension, 2014)
“The Apostasy Canticle” (Draconian, 2005)
4.3.4 Citation
“Wish” (Forest of Shadows, 2001)
“Landscape” (Advent, 2003)
“First Mother (Lilith)” (Silent Planet, 2014)
4.4 Full Album Transformations of Paradise Lost
4.4.1 Damnation and a Day (Cradle of Filth, 2003)
4.4.2 Paradise Lost (Symphony X, 2007)
4.5 “I Sung of Chaos and Eternal Night”: Analysis
References
Discography
Videography
Bibliography
Chapter 5: “We Are the Dead”: Metal Music and the War Poets
5.1 On Metal Music and the War Poets’ Cultural Legacy
5.2 Transformations of First World War Poetry into Metal Music: Phase I (1914–1915)
5.2.1 “For the Fallen” (Laurence Binyon, 1914) and “…For Victory” (Bolt Thrower, 1994)
5.2.2 “In Flanders Fields” (John McCrae, 1915) and “In Flanders Fields” (Sabaton, 2019)
5.2.3 “In Flanders Fields” (John McCrae, 1915) and “In Flanders Fields” and “We Are the Dead” (Crimson Falls, 2006)
5.3 Transformations of First World War Poetry into Metal Music: Phase II (1916–1917)
5.3.1 “The Voice of the Guns” (Gilbert Frankau, 1916) / “Prelude: The Troops” (Siegfried Sassoon, 1919) and “When the Guns Fell Silent” (Warbringer, 2017)
5.4 Transformations of First World War Poetry into Metal Music: Phase III (1917–1918)
5.4.1 “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (Wilfred Owen, 1920) and “Anthem – Chapter I” and “Anthem – Chapter II” (Sieges Even, 1990)
5.4.2 “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (Wilfred Owen, 1920) and “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (Darker Half, 2009)
5.4.3 “Peace” (Rupert Brooke, 1915) / “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (Wilfred Owen, 1920) and “The New Brythonic Legacy” (Nihternnes, 2009)
5.4.4 “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Wilfred Owen, 1920) and “War Graves” (Scythian, 2015)
5.4.5 “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Wilfred Owen, 1920) and “Anthem for a Doomed Youth” (Internal Bleeding, 1999)
5.4.6 “Anthem for Doomed Youth” / “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Wilfred Owen, 1920) and “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (Void of Silence, 2002)
5.5 Sounds from the Battlefield: Analysis
References
Discography
Bibliography
Chapter 6: “Here in Death’s Dream Kingdom”: Discussion
6.1 “Your Facts Are Useful”: Quantitative Analysis
6.1.1 “Changed and Transformed from My Own Natural Shape”: Taxonomy Assessment
6.1.2 “With Music Strong I Come”: Conclusions
References
Discography
Videography
Bibliography
Appendix A: List of Analysed Transformations
Appendix B: Further Transformations
Appendix C: Further Edgar Allan Poe Transformations
Appendix D: Number of Transformations per Poem
Appendix E: Chronological List of Metal Songs
Appendix F: Metal Music Bands
Index
