Storytelling forms as much of the human experience as eating, breathing and sleeping, and ghost stories are an intrinsic part of this. What lies beyond? What if...? What comes after? It's a way of weaving a skein of fables which, when told with the greatest skill, forms a mirror that reflects back not just the facts of our existence but also the hopes and fears we're sometimes circumspect about speaking out loud.
Storytelling forms as much of the human experience as eating, breathing and sleeping, and ghost stories are an intrinsic part of this. What lies beyond? What... more
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What comes beyond? The Angel from John Cardinal Newman's The Dream of Gerontius: Gerontius, very (too) briefly, follows an old man through the gates of death and to the throne of the Most High, whereupon he realises that God's goodness is so great that to stand in His presence in unpurified form will be destruction, and is taken to the soothing lake of Purgatory.
2
A community of ghosts: Cnoc na Feille by Runrig - There's a breadth of tales about the ghost city, ship or train which is apparent for a while, then disappears - for example Brigadoon, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman or indeed Chris de Burgh's Spanish Train. This one, about a ghost market, is by Runrig and is in Scots Gaelic.
3
Reward: Va Pensiero by Verdi - During the state funeral procession of composer Giuseppi Verdi in 1901, the crowds spontaneously broke into what is still his best-known piece - Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, better known by its opening two words, Va, pensiero (fly, thought, on golden wings...). It's a meditation on Psalm 137, in which the slaves in Exile sing their children to sleep with tales of Israel.
4
Payback - the Great Silkie of Sule Skerry by Judy Collins and Tommy Makem - The story goes that one night, a seal came ashore and became a man, and fell in love with a beautiful, mysterious woman. Soon afterwards, as he was returning to the sea and his natural state and leaving her pregnant, he has a vision that his child will be a boy who will gow up to be a seal-gunner, and his first kill will be his father.
5
Wonder - Ghost Riders in the Sky by Vaughn Munroe - this is the tale of an old cowboy who sees a posse of cowherds chasing the devil's herd in the sky, finishing with instructions to the old boy to change his ways in order to earn a different fate.
6
Horror: Nosferatu by Blue Oyster Cult - Blue Öyster Cult released Nosferatu to close their 1977 Spectres album, and is based on the film of the same name. Faithful to the film, which was based on the novel Dracula in 1922 and remade by Werner Herzog in 1979, it contains the risk to the vampire from a woman who is "pure in heart".
7
Generosity: The Wizard by Uriah Heep - It's a plea for healing and looking at one another's similarities instead of difficulties. It's a nice thought, and possibly came true for a bright shining moment with the release and presidency in South Africa of Nelson Mandela, who - a friend of mine from the country reminds me - could have initiated a bloodbath with a wave of his hand.
8
Possession: The Tower by Chris de burgh - a classic parable of knowing somebody's value only once they've gone. From his concept album Spanish Train and other Stories, it merges warnings against encroaching upon God's creation too much originating from medioeval times with his own story about a nobleman who wanted to possess a beautiful, mysterious woman so much that he only realised too late that he had been in love with her.
9
Love: A Daisy a day by Jud Strunk - In many ways the story behind the song, of a man who uses a simple gesture to demonstrate that he still loves his woman who's passed away and whom he's known since childhood, is the opposite of The Raven. It is devotion looking upwards, without the obsession that turns everything it touches sinister.
10
Obsession: The Raven by The Allan Parsons Project - from the Alan Parson Project's seminal 1976 album Tales of Mystery and Imagination, named after a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and poems. The poem of the same name concerns a young man who is morbidly devoted to his lost love Lenore, who the poem implies has died, and is seeking occult ways to have her returned to him. The video matches the mood of the poem exactly, and I would thoroughly recommend reading Poe's original poem.
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