BOC: The Colour Out of Space appears to be ... Blue ...

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On fre 1 maj 1998 17.15 +0100 "M R Godwin" <hssmrg at BATH.AC.UK> wrote:
> On Fri, 1 May 1998, Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:
>>      You haven't even seen the evil creation I built a few years ago:
>> lyrics to my shameless BOC-rip-off song (alas, never recorded because it
>> _was_ a sprawling epic) based on H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of
>> Space".
>>      I called it, "The Colour Out of Space".
>
> Talk about shameless rips-off! I too have a song called
> "Color Out of Space"! (my copy of Lovecraft was a US edition).

     Clearly we've uncovered a deep well of public support for music which
involves "The Colour Out of Space" :)  Here's my offering ...


THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE
(C. Anderson)

*VERSE 1 [clean guitar arpegiated stuff in A]

West of Arkham the hills rise wild
Where did  the tangled trees arise
And soft lives dwell
They did not know
How angels fail
And fools will go
There fell from out forbidden skies

[massive E power chord riffing]

Chromatic metal on the storm
Plunged beside the well
Cryptic matter magnetized
It's glow resolving down

>From formless realms of sunless night
That undimensioned rainbow burns
The colour (colour!)
Out of space!


VERSE 2 [clean guitar arpegiated stuff in A]

In the valley slow the poison grows
A bitter harvest where the colour sows
The n flowers show
A wicked hue
And pale decay
Blooms out anew
The helpless senses fall away

[massive E power chord riffing]

Madness now the screaming mind
Brittle greying cries
Mutant form and deadly draw
That emanating force

>From formless realms of sunless night
That undimensioned rainbow burns
The colour (colour!)
Out of space!

[EERIE SPACEY SECTION]

Lost in the void
Beyond the wall of night
Where trees bend black
Away from killing light
The night is long
With a thousand tears
The night is old
With a thousand fears

The last freezing sun
Burns a flame untold
Where desperate minds
Sing soft whispers cold
Ride the sky
To it¹s end
Ride to death
Your lifelong friend

[slow 4 chord ascending riff which builds louder and heavier]
[backing vocals with riff, to be repeated ad nauseum:]

The colour out of space ... The colour out of space ... [etc.]

[extemporized speech along these lines, with building hysteria:]

Nothing ... Nothing!   the colour ... it burns!   cold .... wet!
but burning ....
It lives in the well ... I can see it!  Like a smoke ... an awful mist
.. it shines in the night!
It sucks out the life ... everything!  Everything!  everything alive ...
Into that stone ... It came in the stone ... with seeds ... and it grew ..
It beats down your mind ... and sucks up your life! burns you!
draws you in ... into the well!
Evil water ... Evil water!  You can¹t get away ... it¹s just a colour ..
but it will do more ...
It comes from a place where things aren¹t as they are here ...

[conclude spoken section with soul-rending scream]


VERSE 3 [clean guitar arpegiated stuff in A]

West of Arkham the trees wave wild
The swelling light nameless to the eyes
Where soft death comes
They never knew
The demon shade
With strength anew
The power drawn it homeward flies

[massive E power chord riffing]

Shrieking colours rend the sky
Kaleidoscope distorts
Monstrous fire to Cygnus burns
Yet some fearful spark remains

>From formless realms of sunless night
That undimensioned rainbow burns
The colour (colour!)
Out of space!


--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/