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  1. Falling Down

From the recording As Eden Lay In Darkness

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This is a song about how everything falls; destroyed by obsession. I admire the gothic horror writing of HP Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe and I wanted to write a gothic themed song using as much imagery as possible. The theme of the song is about how all empires fall, no matter how well built or how high they aspire. There are lots of literary and film references from a diverse range of sources such as The Bible, Wind In The Willows, The Raven, It’s A Wonderful Life, Neil Armstrong’s first words on stepping on to the surface of the moon, Greek legend and The Perfumed Garden amongst others. On cold, dark, winter mornings this is the song that most often falls into my head.

We recorded it in Dunkeld and I particularly enjoyed the way that a very young and gifted violinist called Mhari Macdonald came along and just played the perfect accompaniment.

Credits

Vocals: Tom Fairnie
Harmony: Inge McIlroy
Guitar: Tom Fairnie
2nd guitar: Bernard Brogue
Double bass: Ken Kennedy
Violin: Mhari Macdonald
Keyboard: Killian Playthell-Steele
Processed tablas: Calum & Colin Mackechnie

Lyrics

Falling Down

I’m staring at black birds wearing out a grey sky
Clawing at smokestacks burnt-out and bone dry
Looking at a night owl coughing up a lungful
Of nothing but pitch black blood from a blind fool
Crows in the cobwebs, bats in the belfries
Moss covered monks with fingers like alleyways
Praying like pagans with one last word
A dead tongue clicking in a silent herd

And it’s falling down; this gothic town’s got
Bell tower dreams and black stone beams
But it’s falling down, falling down

Ringing like a wind chime hanging in a bell tower
Chiming at midnight, the perfumed hour
Candle wax cracks on a cold stone floor
Yellows with age in moonlight evermore
At Aurora’s Gate, where dreamers dwell
Mammon and the Philistines bathed in oil
As a piper danced and Icarus flew
Safe as the moonlight waxed black feather blue

And it’s falling down…

As Eden lay in darkness and Adam in his blindness
Fell for Eve and suffered for her kindness
Ate a fallen apple he should have declined
His small fall from grace; a giant fall for mankind
And the worm that gnaws at your shoulder blade
Where angel’s wings are torn and frayed
Into demon rags and Hell’s bell rings
For another Bible stolen on a raven’s wings

And it’s falling down…

Where a good deed lies like a mortal sin
Redeemed at the very last breath of man
Justified by a line of scars
In the face of geometry and the stars
In the underground of a nameless city
Where a bloodhound bayed and growled at pity
On ill-tempered chains tethered to the dawn
At first sign of light they all woke reborn

And it’s falling down…

© Falling Down words & music by Tom Fairnie September 27th 2004

No matter how sweet
There is always a worm
Within the apple.
No kiss is complete
Until the morning after
And staining this sheet
May never transform
Poetry to promise
But, where our lips meet
That taste is more than a kiss.

Klimt © Bob Shields