Röyksopp officially announced today that its forthcoming album, The Inevitable End, would in fact be the Norwegian electronic duo's last formal album. One of the album's stellar tracks (we already know because it was featured on the duo's collaborative effort with Robyn, Do It Again) is "Monument," which is totally the vocalist planning her future resting place.
"Make a space/for my body/Dig a hole/push the sides apart." Rather somber stuff but the narrator includes that her monument will "be a beacon when I'm gone." It's not an absolutely grim song, although it certainly fits within the walls of the macabre.
We're feeling a little dark ourselves on this Monday afternoon (early in the week ya know) so we're going to look back at a number of songs named after the stones that will eventually mark our graves. Maybe get some ideas in the process.
"Tombstone Blues" by Bob Dylan
"Tombstone Blues" has always carried the impossible task of being the track that follows the immortal "Like A Rolling Stone" on the album Highway 61 Revisited (it was essentially dead in the water). Still a pretty good track, if not at the same level of its neighbor. "Tombstone" references death in many forms, from Paul Revere's reincarnated horse to the King of the Philistines "put(ting) jaw bones on their tombstones and flatters their graves." Jack the Ripper also gets a starring role as the Chief of the Chamber of Commerce while Dylan rails against whatever's bothering him in the same mystic way he did during the classic preceding it.
The Living Tombstone
Might as well touch on this performer while we're on the subject of tombstones: The Living Tombstone, an Israeli electro producer, doesn't often touch on subject matter dark enough to live up to his title (we suppose he does clarify that it's a "living" tombstone). When he does, however, it's terrifying. If you haven't played the hit web game Five Nights at Freddy's THEN STILL DON'T. This is one of the creepiest things we've ever seen...involving you trying to survive a night of animatronic animals-cum-Weeping Angels. Anyway, Living Tombstone provides the game's semi-biographical title theme.
"In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" by The Allman Brothers
Okay so now that we've gotten the worst (Five Night's At Freddy's) out of the way, let's look at the "happiest" song about graves featured on the list. "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" is one of the Allman Brothers' classics, written about a dead woman that the band had no actual affiliation with. The group used to hang out at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, GA when songwriting, and guitarist Dickey Betts decided to make a homage to a particular headstone name and his own "travelin' spirit." Reed can rest in peace, knowing that a seminal jam song exists in her name.
"Pierre Tombale" by MC Circulaire
Foreign people have gravestones too, you know. Paris is particularly noted for its final resting places, considering it plays host to Pére Lachaise Cemetery (where Jim Morrison and many others now lay) plus the "world's largest grave," the Catacombs. Rapper MC Circulaire laments his closeness to death on "Pierre Tombale" (which translates to "headstone" in English). The tale more laments the difficulty of life and abuse issues like alcoholism that stem from it, versus a more gothic narrative.
"III. Urn" by Childish Gambino
We're thinking a little bit more out of the box on this one but what else do you keep inside urns except for the ashes of cremated individuals? Tell us in the comment section if we're wrong, but Gambino's lyrics that "we see him in the night/tell him that I'm not afraid of him/I'm not afraid of 'em/cause I won't know" are most likely a reference to death personified. Plus the track seems to correlate with a scene in the Because The Internet screenplay where Gambino's character The Boy dumps his father's ashes.
Monument to Time End by Twilight
If anyone were going to come up with a creative name for a headstone, it would probably be the members of a black metal super group. Twilight's Monument to Time End was the band's most triumphant effort, both faithful to the bleak traditions of the subgenre while pushing past all of its barriers from a structural perspective. We've had this conversation with many a metal friend before, explaining what the convoluted title probably refers to, and we've gotten many an "ohhhhhhhhh" in response.
