While waiting for Death Cab for Cutie to take the stage Sunday night, see if you can guess who penned each line of morbid prose—Ben Gibbard or 19th-Century gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe!
1. “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing / Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”
2. “Oh, how this penchant is a curse / All the way from the cradle to the hearse / And there are days when I wish you’d just become / An acquaintance or a time-to-time someone.”
3. “Thank Heaven! The crisis / The danger is past / And the lingering illness / Is over at last / And the fever called “Living” / Is conquered at last.”
4. “And we watched the plumes paint the sky gray / As she laughed and danced through the field of graves / There, I knew it would be alright / That everything would be alright.”
5. “I have spoken — I have spoken / They have registered the vow / And though my faith be broken / And though my heart be broken / Behold the golden token / That proves me happy now!”
6. “Something about Satan’s dart / Something about angel wings / Much about a broken heart / All about unhappy things.”
7. “We buried our love in a wintry grave / A lump in the snow was all that remained / Though we stayed by its side as the days turned to weeks / As the ice kept getting thinner with every word that we’d speak.”
8. “And it ain’t easy living above / And I can’t help but keep falling in love with bones and ashes / With bones and ashes.”
9. “And neither the angels in Heaven above / Nor the demons down under the sea / Can ever dissever my soul from the soul / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”
10. “As they drowned we could hear them screaming / ‘Oh, what a tragic way to see our final days.’”
11. “No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white / Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark.”
12. “I stand amid the roar / Of a surf-tormented shore / And I hold within my hand / Grains of the golden sand / How few! yet how they creep / Through my fingers to the deep.”
Answer key is below.
Answer key: 1. Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” 2. Death Cab for Cutie, “I Built You a Tower (a)” 3. Edgar Allan Poe, “For Annie” 4. Death Cab for Cutie, “Grapevine Fires” 5. Edgar Allan Poe, “Bridal Ballad” 6. Edgar Allan Poe, “The Valley of Unrest” 7. Death Cab for Cutie, “The Ice Is Getting Thinner” 8. Death Cab for Cutie, “Here to Forever” 9. Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” 10. Death Cab for Cutie, “20th Century Towers” 11. Death Cab for Cutie, “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” 12. Edgar Allan Poe, “ A Dream Within a Dream”
