- published: 01 Sep 2006
- views: 33008075
Cradle of Filth are a British extreme metal band that formed in Suffolk in 1991. The band's musical style evolved from black metal to a cleaner and more "produced" amalgam of gothic metal, symphonic black metal and other extreme metal styles. Their lyrical themes and imagery are heavily influenced by gothic literature, poetry, mythology and horror films.
The band has broken free from its original niche by courting mainstream publicity (often to the chagrin of its early fanbase), giving the band a "commercial" image. This increased accessibility has brought coverage from the likes of Kerrang! and MTV, along with frequent main stage appearances at major festivals such as Ozzfest, Download and even the mainstream Sziget Festival. They have sometimes been perceived as satanic by casual observers, even though their outright lyrical references to Satanism are few and far between; their use of satanic imagery has arguably always been more for shock value rather than any seriously held beliefs.
As lonely as a poet on the wall of Jericho
Or the moon without the comfort of the stars
I am loathe to know it that a man without a soul
Is nothing but a split canopic jar
I proved it, improved it
Drove a sonnet right through it
And in this state of bliss
Evil kissed with wet lips
Pen-filled fingertips
Which drew me, for through me
Illuminati usually pissed
But with words of some hurts worth
I threw a party that extended God's list
Exciting new flames that my fame would claim for me
Reciting back the almanac of travesties
They call me bad
Mad Caliban with manner
Dangerous to know
A passing fad
Taught in all debauch
In excess and in canto
Grown wild this child
Whole harems defiled
Faustina's and Mina's
Lady Libertine and her sisters between her
What spread of lies arise when lovers die
Which circle of hell is mine when I arrive?
They call me bad
Mad Caliban with manners
Dangerous to know
A passing fad
Taught in all debauch
Crow against the virgin snow
Grown colder, my shoulder
Like a boulder beside her
And bolder, not wiser
My dark seed took up root inside he
That mouldered, where older
Beddings would hold a passionate sigh
But laudanum and soda
Lord Numb coda
Merited a forest of inherited spite
Fleeing grief for foreign maps
I still played vampire aristocrat
Unloading my gun in hot, promiscuous laps
Then shooting swans in a gondola
I tripped my foot on a fallen star
And there's nothing like a mouthful of Venetian tar
To let you know just who you fucking are
Ville
The patron saint of heartache
You can't see my world is falling
The world is falling down
The patron saint of heartache
Can't see the world is falling
My world is falling down
Dani and Ville
Ever after, can they hear my laughter?
The patron saint of heartache
Never craft a better bed of disaster...
The patron saint of heartache
They call me bad
Made Caliban with manners
Dangerous to know
A passing fad
Taught in all debauch
In excess and in canto
They call me bad
Mad Caliban with manners
Dangerous to know
A passing fad
Whereupon I tell them
To go fuck their mothers
As so...