User:Quispiam/The Poet and the Pendulum

"The Poet and the Pendulum" is a song by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, originally appearing on their 2007 album Dark Passion Play. The song became a regular appearance on the band's 2007-2009 Dark Passion Play World Tour, and appeared as a live version on the 2009 album Made in Hong Kong (And in Various Other Places). The song was written by keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen between 2006 and 2007, and is the band's longest song to date, at almost fourteen minutes of length. The song has often been cited as Nightwish' best song by many independent reviewers, including Sputnikmusic.

Composition
The song involves the songwriter Tuomas Holopainen - referred to as "the poet", "the songwriter" or simply "Tuomas" in the song - and deals with his experiences in life and in music, and especially concerning the turmoil of the band in 2004 and 2005, when the band and then-singer Tarja Turunen grew apart, leading to her getting kicked out of the band in October 2005. The lyrics talk of how "the Poet" dies in "the year of 2005", and of how he is resurrected.

Production
Composer and keyboardist Holopainen wrote the song as one of the first for the new album that would become Dark Passion Play in 2006. He quickly saw it as a deeply personal and emotional song, and decided to feature himself in it as the title character, the "Poet" of the story. Throughout the lyrics, he is referred to as a songwriter, poet, and towards the end by his own name. The idea of including himself in the song was itself inspired by reading Stephen King's novel The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah, in which King included himself in the story, as being visited by the main characters of the series.

At around the same time, Holopainen got the idea to reference American 19th century author Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Pit and the Pendulum, in which a man is put on an altar with a swinging blade above him, slowly coming closer and reaching for his neck. Holopainen referenced the story in the word play of the title of the song as well as in the lyrics, in which he "put [himself] onto the altar with the swaying pendulum on top of [him]". According to Holopainen, this imagery resembled what he and Nightwish had been going through: "I felt like I was beneath this swinging blade and that it was going to come down any minute now and split me in half."

After handing the lyrics to the "The Pacific" part to the choir and to Tom Williams, the boy soprano who had been chosen for the job, the lyrics were rejected by the choirmaster as they were too obscene to recite. The lyrics were then adjusted and cleaned up by Holopainen, and some parts he wanted to keep were instead sung by Hietala. The original demo version with the later removed words, recited by Hietala, is featured on the "Bye Bye Beautiful" CD single.

Holopainen immediately wanted the song as the intro track, instead of the last track as most longer songs usually are. This choice was primarily done because of Holopainen wanting to open big, and wanting to reserve the final-track position for the song "Meadows of Heaven". While expecting the other band mates and the record companies to point out what a commercial suicide it would be, the response was instead greatly positive, and it was seen as "a sledgehammer to the face at the beginning of the album".

Live performances
Composer and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen has called the song one of his favorites to perform live. In a Q and A session on the band's website in 2008, he said that it was the only song that could compare to certain other highlights, like playing "Higher Than Hope", which was dedicated to a boy dying of cancer, with his family attending.