The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #115485 Message #2475731
Posted By: GUEST,Bob Coltman
25-Oct-08 - 07:57 AM
Thread Name: Songs About Necrophilia
Subject: RE: Songs About Necrophilia
The impulse behind this is not romantic love, but religious ecstasy. Still it comes out sounding much the same thing.
George Whitefield, a preacher associated with the 19th century Great (religious) awakening wrote it to be sung at his funeral. The DT has 2 verses. The complete version is six verses long. But the first verse is the one closest to the necrophiliac urge:
OH LOVELY APPEARANCE OF DEATH
(George Whitefield)
Oh, lovely appearance of death,
What sight upon earth is so fair?
Not all the gay pageants that breathe
Can with a dead body compare.
In solemn delight I survey
A corpse when the spirit is fled
In love with the beautiful clay,
And longing to lie in its stead.
Also, though it's not a folk song, Poe's "Annabel Lee" is surely one of the most astonishing lyrics along these lines.