"The Tell-Tale Heart"

I listened to Tales of Mystery and Imagination earlier and noticed something about "The Tell-Tale Heart."  Even before I started this project, I noticed that the ternary structure of the song mirrors the mental state of the narrator.  In the first section, the narrator is paranoid because of the old man's eye, and to reflect this, there's the standard rock song instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drums, along with a raucous vocal.  In the middle section, after the narrator has killed the old man, he calms down.  The instrumentation becomes lighter (with strings and woodwinds), and the vocal is smoother.  Once the narrator starts to hear the old man's heart beating again, he becomes distraught, and the instrumentation returns to what it was in the first section.

Listening to the song this evening, I noticed that this change in mental state is also illustrated in the rhyme scheme.  For the most part, the first and third sections have an ABCB rhyme scheme; the sounds at the end of each line bounce around in the same manner as the narrator's addled mind.  In the second section, however, the rhyme scheme is AAA; it's stable and consistent, as if the narrator has found peace of mind.

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

This evening I figured out a couple guitar phrases in "The Tell-Tale Heart."  While doing so, the lines "So for the old man / Ashes to ashes, earth to earth, and dust to dust" caught my ear.  It's from Ecclesiastes 3:20:  "All go to one place.  All are from the dust, and to dust all return."

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I recently read Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," and while I was reading it, I found a few interesting APP-related things.

The source for this part of the APP song (near the end of the song):

Heard all the things in Heaven and Earth
I've seen many things in Hell
But his vulture's eye of a cold pale blue
Is the eye of the Devil himself

is actually near the beginning in Poe's story.  Poe's narrator says, "The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them.  Above all was the sense of hearing acute.  I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.  I heard many things in hell" and "One of his [the old man's] eyes resembled that of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it."  It's interesting that the APP changed "heard many things in hell" to "seen many things in Hell" - it emphasizes visual nature and eyes.  (There might also be some relation to later APP albums in that quote, specifically Vulture Culture and Eye in the Sky.)

Poe's "There was nothing to wash out - no stain of any kind - no blood-spot whatsoever" results in the APP's "And he won't be found at all / Not a trace to mark his fall / Nor a stain upon the wall."

Poe has a long section devoted to the sound in his narrator's head:

My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they [the policemen] sat and still chatted.  The ringing became more distinct: - it continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness - until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.

There's a paragraph break, and then the narrator says, "No doubt I now grew very pale…"

In the APP's "The Tell-Tale Heart," this is rendered as:

Louder and louder
Till I could tell the sound was not within my ears
You should have seen me
You would have seen my eyes grow white and cold with fear

The narrator's "eyes grow[ing] white" is not specifically mentioned in Poe's story, merely that "I now grew very pale."  However, the addition of the eyes is interesting because it provides a sort of comparison between the narrator's "white and cold" eyes and the old man's "eye of a cold pale blue."  Both sets of eyes (or, rather, the narrator's eyes and the old man's single eye) are "cold" and pallid.

In Poe's story, the old man's eye itself isn't described as cold, but rather coldness is the effect it has on the narrator:  "Whenever it [the old man's eye] fell upon me, my blood ran cold" and later "I saw it with perfect distinctness - all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones."

Sight is important not only with regard to the old man's eye, but also to the narrator's visibility.  In Poe's story, there are the lines "But you should have seen me.  You should have seen how wisely I proceeded - with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I went to work!"  There are two "you should have seen"s and also "foresight."  Likewise, the APP song has "You should have seen me / You would have seen my eyes."

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I listened to Tales of Mystery and Imagination this morning, and I noticed that the bass part during the third part of "The Tell-Tale Heart" has a rhythm that evokes the heartbeat that the narrator of Poe's story and the singer of the song hear.  (This is not the most interesting audio example; it's pretty much just a minute of C notes, but the rhythm is the salient point.)

Last May, while doing a different project, I noted how the ABA form of the piece goes well with the mental states of the speaker/singer, but including that heartbeat rhythm makes it even better.  This isn't the only instance of a lyrically-conscious bass part on the album either; the bass part in "The Raven" has a three-note phrase that's apparently meant to resemble the three syllables of "nevermore."