The Raven (song)

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"The Raven"
Single by the Alan Parsons Project
from the album Tales of Mystery and Imagination
B-side "The Fall of the House of Usher" (prelude) [1]
ReleasedSeptember 1976 [2]
Genre
Length3:43
Label 20th Century
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) Alan Parsons
The Alan Parsons Project singles chronology
"(The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether"
(1976)		"The Raven"
(1976)		"To One in Paradise"
(1976)

"The Raven" is a song by the Alan Parsons Project, recorded in April 1976 at Mama Jo's Studio, North Hollywood, Los Angeles. [3] It is the second track on their debut album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination , which is a tribute to author and poet Edgar Allan Poe. [4] The song's lyrics are based on Poe's poem of the same name and were written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson. [5]

Contents

"The Raven" was one the first songs to use a vocoder developed by as manufactured by EMI Central Research Laboratories, which was used to process Alan Parsons' voice. [6] [7] Actor Leonard Whiting performs the lead vocals for the remainder of the song, with Eric Woolfson and the Westminster City School Boys Choir providing backing vocals. [7] [8]

"The Raven" was the second single released from Tales of Mystery and Imagination and peaked at No. 80 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart the week of October 30, 1976. [9] It does not appear on either The Best of the Alan Parsons Project or The Best of the Alan Parsons Project, Volume 2 , as the band moved from 20th Century Records to Arista after the release of Tales of Mystery and Imagination. It appears on the American version of the 1997 2 CD Definitive Collection and the 2007 collection, The Essential Alan Parsons Project .

B-side

The B-side of "The Raven" is "The Fall of the House of Usher" prelude. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is an instrumental suite that runs more than fifteen minutes and takes up most of side two of Tales of Mystery and Imagination, however, the prelude is trimmed down to 5:59. Although uncredited, the prelude is taken from the opera fragment "La chute de la maison Usher" by Claude Debussy, which was composed between 1908 and 1917. [10]

Other versions

On the 1987 reissued version of Tales of Mystery and Imagination, the song contains a guitar solo by Ian Bairnson near the end, before the "Quoth the Raven"/"Nevermore, nevermore, nevermore, never!" refrains and a few licks between the lyrics. [11]

The choral band Gregorian covered "The Raven" on their 2004 release, The Dark Side . [12]

American rapper Danny Brown sampled the song for "Clean Up" on his 2013 album Old . [13]

Personnel

Original (1976)
Reissue (1987)

Chart performance

Chart (1976)Peak
position
US Billboard Hot 100 [14] 80

References

  1. ↑ "The Alan Parsons Project – The Raven". Discogs . 1976.
  2. ↑ Strong, Martin Charles (22 October 1995). Great Rock Discography. Canongate Press. p. 616. ISBN   9780862415419.
  3. ↑ "The Alan Parsons Project – Tales Of Mystery And Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe". Discogs. 1976.
  4. ↑ "Tales of Mystery and Imagination". The Alan Parsons Project Official Website.
  5. ↑ "The Raven". ML Genius Holdings, LLC. Woolfsongs Ltd/ Careers Music Inc.
  6. ↑ Tales of Mystery and Imagination Liner Notes (Liner Notes). The Alan Parsons Project. UK: Charisma. 1976.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  7. 1 2 Reed, David (9 June 2023). "Alan Parsons Project's early releases deserve your attention". The Intellegencer . Retrieved 27 February 2025.
  8. ↑ DeGagne, Mike. "Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe Review". AllMusic .
  9. ↑ "Hot 100". Billboard . 30 October 1976.
  10. ↑ The Cambridge companion to Debussy , p. 297 n. 100 / edited by Simon Trezise, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  11. ↑ "The Alan Parsons Project – Tales Of Mystery And Imagination". Discogs. 1987.
  12. ↑ "The Dark Side - Gregorian". AllMusic.
  13. ↑ "Clean Up by Danny Brown". Who Sampled.
  14. ↑ "Alan Parsons Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
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