OFF TOPIC with Steve Mixup. A place for me to tell the odd story or two about the post war rock generation. If they couldn’t change the world at least they brought us some wonderful music.

I guess we are all aware of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the central figures of Gothic Horror. My first introduction to his work was ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ in which the main character takes revenge on someone by luring them to some catacombs whereupon he gets them drunk, chains them to a wall and bricks them up in a cavity where despite their plea’s they die.

Fast forward many decades. I was listening to an album called ‘A Nice Way Of Life’ by the French group Cruciferius!, an innovative rock pearl from 1970. Elements of rock and jazz, keys, vibes and grooves that epitomises that turn of the seventies experimentation that was rife at the time. The last track on side two,however, sounded a little out of step with the rest of the album. A slow but nevertheless catchy song called Annabel Lee. Not a unique idea, sometimes a group would put an odd track at the end of album, a little ditty, something left over, a novelty maybe.

It was a song that I kept coming back to, realising I found it intriguing and compelling. Some of the pronunciation was a little strange. ‘Coveted’ sounded at first a bit like ‘cup of tea’, and ‘Annabelee’ sang almost like it was one word. I had to find out what this song was about and it turned out to be Edgar Allan Poe’s last written poem. In his style of death and beauty a possible candidate for Annabel was Poe’s wife Virginia and with only a few words changed, the group gave life to a heartfelt story of mournful love.

Others have covered this poem, Stevie Nicks and Joan Baez are two and I’m sure I have Joan’s version somewhere in my collection but I’ll give it up to Cruciferius! for it bringing back to my attention once again.

Annabel Lee By Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.