The Death March: Salvage or R.I.P.?

[Jack Russell]

I just wrote a tune which has a slow beat (snare on 3), some dissonant chords, a descending baseline, and a melody in a minor key with a lot of whole notes. Lyrics are scratch at this point, but the first write of it seems to be about 'going down,' 'winds that blow from the east,' and something being 'underground'. Very vague stuff, without a doubt. I intent to revise the lyrics a lot before I'm done, but I figured the melody was done.

I thought I was on to something, but I played it for my wife and she said it is, you geussed it, a DEATH MARCH going straight down to hell.

She said it was a shame that I had taken some really nice background music, which she liked, and ruined it by having a 'death march' melody over the top.

So, I thought I'd throw this out to the forum:

Can you name any slow "death marches" with melodies that are definitely NOT sad, depressing, or about death and that make the music really have an uplifting feel? What is it about some slow dark-sounding tunes that works, while others just...well...go to hell?

Make your wife listen to Grieg the Peer Gynt Suite no2 Aases Tot, to make her appreciate a really sad, depressing tune about death. If not, try Nick Cave who is (in my humble opinion) a master in the genre of death and sadness. He can make music sound totaly uplifting and energetic while singing about death and destruction. There still is a dark and sinister force present in all his music though. Listen to his album The Murder Ballads in particular for songs about death. Also on Let Love In / no9 Lay Me Low his sings about his own funeral. This could be worth listening to.

[Garry Sharp]

Jack - use the lyrics to turn it around. Find some redemption at the end, or flip it the other way and turn hubris into nemesis; either way, make it move with the words. That will inspire some musical twiddling and your death march will become an escape route.

well, only my .02p