For space is wide and good friends are too few.
This manipulation buries my twisted truth
This modification carries my future youth
So I shall be what I’ve become
Femme fatale
“Femme Fatale,” from Leslie Hudson’s concept album about fictional redheads. I picked one of the better-known characters to post; this one is about Black Widow.
And I’ll be there before you know it
I’ll be gone before you see me
And do you think you can imagine
Anything so lonely
And I know you’d really like me
But I never stick around
Because time keeps dragging on
“The Ballad of Barry Allen,” a song about the downsides of being a speedster. Original song by Jim’s Big Ego, performed here by Eben Brooks.
Lyrics available here.
Sometimes you need to take a break from hope songs to be sad and scared and take refuge in needlessly complicated poetic forms.
Sleep, my girl, and dream of home
Of lamps alight and hearth aflame
A china cup, a silver comb
An old grey wolf for you to tame
A rider come who knows your name
“Likho’s Lullabye,” based on a traditional Russian lullabye and the novel Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, with additional lyrics & melody by Michelle Dockrey, sung by Michelle Dockrey of Vixy & Tony
She puts on velvet, fits like a glove
She doesn’t hate and she doesn’t love
She’s a beast without and a woman within
When she puts on velvet like a second skin.
“Velvet,” a werewolf song by Talis Kimberley, with John Jones and Kieran Taaffe
Black water, final rescue, dark water, lasting peace
Black water, keeping secrets none may know
Black water, final rescue, bring silence and release
Black water, through the city swiftly flow
“Black Water,” also called “Suicide,” by Mercedes Lackey and C.J. Cherryh, performed by Leslie Fish and Heather Alexander. This is one of those songs that sounds like fantasy until you realize what they’re talking about (obvious, in this case, from the subtitle), and then it’s a little unsettling.
Merlin am I, Merlin am I,
I know the secrets,
Of the land and the sky,
Land and the sky,
And you’ll hear my voice,
In the eagle’s cry,
Merlin am I.
“Merlin Am I,” by Damh The Bard
There used to be some radio from Swindon
Eight months ago the signal failed to send
I’d like to hope that there are other places
Like World’s End
“World’s End,” by Talis Kimberley, lyrics available here
I am the daughter of a poor estate.
With no dowry there’s no man who’d have me as wife.
The tower called out so gently to me,
Said a keeper’s oath would set me free.
The years pass by, and the nights and the days,
And the people may change but my works stays the same.
Though I love them well they leave anyway,
While here in the tower alone I stay
“Keeper’s Lament,” by Anne Harlan Prather, based on Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels
The tears I feel today
I’ll wait to shed tomorrow,
Though I’ll not sleep this night
Nor find surcease from sorrow.
A short but haunting song, music by Julia Ecklar and lyrics by Anne McCaffrey, taken from her Dragonriders of Pern series.
Chords to this version are available here, but there’s a more recent and arguably MORE haunting version by Tania Opland that I also highly recommend.