DESCRIPTION:
From the opera, The Fall Of The House Of Usher. This is from the 1999 re-release, "The Fall Of The House Of Usher (Deconstructed & Rebuilt)". The original 1991 release, under Some Bizzare Records, contained drum parts. When Hammill regained rights to the opera, he removed the drum parts and added string parts, played by Stuart Gordon on violin.

Music by Peter Hammill
Libretto by Chris Judge Smith

The House - Peter Hammill
Roderick Usher - Peter Hammill
Madeline Usher - Lene Lovich
Montresor - Andy Bell
The Herbalist - Herbert Grönemeyer
Chorus - Sarah Jane Morris

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RODERICK: Yes, I hear it! Yes, I have heard it
long, long - many minutes, many hours,
but I dared not speak:
I tell you I dared not speak.
No more cant from you,
you thick-skinned obtuse fool, damn your compassion!
For now I say you will hear the wicked truth
We put her living in the tomb!
But I dared not, I dared not speak!
Yes, have I not heard her footsteps on the stair?
Yes, do I not distinguish
the heavy and horrible beating of her heart?
Yes, she is coming.
She has woken in the darkness,
in her mindless, relentless strength.
Now she has broken from the tomb.
Now she has burst from the tomb.

Days ago I heard her first feeble movements
in the hollow coffin -
said I not that my senses were acute?
I heard the scraping, the scraping of her nails -
but I dared not, I dared not speak!
Madman! Madman!
I tell you that she now comes towards the door!

RODERICK, MONTRESOR, CHORUS, THE HOUSE:
No, what a House
Monstrous thought! We
Now the punishment breath!
is finished. The evil that House
You said is done we are!
she was dead... cannot be We
You watched undone. could not
her dying!

It's over now It's over now
What evil have
you done?
It could not be prevented!
God, what a
monstrous thought!
It's over now. It's over now.
The evil that is done
Why must innocence
be punished?
Could this have not
been prevented?
It's over now It's over now

I dare not
I dared not speak!
Madman!
Madman!
I tell you
that she now stands
outside the door!