We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

He Comes in the Night

from OPHELIA album by Angeline Morrison

/

about

Thinking about haunting and ghosts in general has led me to some compelling stories. It's easy to find out about them, so there's no need for me to name here the particular stories that seem reluctant to leave my imagination. You can even listen to audio recordings of ghostly activity online, or read written accounts. It was one of the many audios, in this case of a suburban haunting where pre-teen girls were involved, that inspired this song. I used it as a starting point and then imagined many possible story twists. The narrator in this one at first seems lovelorn. The 'he' that comes in the night is someone they seem to be seeking, wanting to see more of. But perhaps what is being expressed here is less of a love poem, more an account of the gradual hollowing-out of someone's sense of self.

"Dark, unsettling folk that verges on the hymnal" (BBC Music Introducing, SouthWest)

lyrics

He comes in the night and moves things (moves things)
Before I can reach for the cord of the lamp
And close my fingers around it,
He has moved things (moved things).

I try very hard to see him (see him)
Let fall on the darkness a sheet of this soft yellow light,
But it's too late...
I can't see him (see him).

Time, with whom we align,
On whom we recline, you and I
Leaves the dust, O the lovely, lovely dust
He will sometimes cry,
The dust-motes are all that we have, you and I...

Soemtimes he will leave a tracing (tracing).
A wild hieroglyphic that moves in the dust
Like a dry little kiss
In my memory.

He comes in the night and moves things (moves things).
The days are a shadowless waste
And my heart is a cavernous place
Since he moved things (moved things).

credits

from OPHELIA album, track released January 5, 2021
Songwriting & Arrangement: Angeline Morrison
Keyboards: Angeline Morrison
Knives: Angeline Morrison
Recorded, mixed & produced by Angeline Morrison.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow

"Bewitching and otherworldly... Morrison's voice is eerily confiding, strangely present, insistent even at its quietest" Folk Radio UK.

Believing in the beauty of sad songs, weaving folk, soul and beat sounds of the '60s into a tapestry of the human heart. Homespun sounds that reside in a nostalgic universe.

"Dark, unsettling folk that verges on the hymnal" BBC Introducing.
... more

shows

contact / help

Contact Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this track or account

Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow recommends:

If you like Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow, you may also like: