For My Sunday Song #46, I have chosen “The Day The Ravens Left The Tower” by The Alarm. The song is off the album, ‘Strength’, from 1985 and is one of my all time favorite albums from the 80’s. They were never hugely popular in the States although MTV played them a lot. The album did reach #39 on the Billboard 200 Chart.
“The Day The Ravens Left the Tower” is a very dark song and was a real jump in their songwriting lyrically. They have always been political with their songs, but the maturity and growth in songwriting really shined on this song for me. I know I read this somewhere that the song was inspired by a hallucination that Eddie MacDonald had when he was sick with the flu. I think that is cool if that is true.
What I am fascinated with about the song is actually the story of the ravens. For those that don’t know, there are ravens that live in the Tower of London. There have been ravens living there since as far back as 1660 or so around the time of King Charles II. It is believed that the ravens are there to protect the Crown. If they should ever leave the tower, the Crown and Britain would fall. I know there is a lot more to the story, but I am not a historian and the site is about music so you can look it up further if you are interested…it is fascinating stuff (also any UK readers want to add anything, please leave a comment).
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2 Loud 2 Old Music 