Close Reading: H.P. Lovecraft "The White Ship"

H.P. Lovecraft, "The White Ship"

Lovecraft, H.P. . "White Ship." HP Lovecraft - The White Ship. 01 Jan 2008. 26 Apr 2008 .
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Link To Text

This selection is not the same as my previous post, which was the original text from 1919 written by the author H.P. Lovecraft. This is the song written by the band H.P. Lovecraft in 1967 that was released on their debut album during the summer of love. This song, however, has nothing to do with love or anything remotely similar. The song, written in homage to their inspiration, is a very eerie look into the writings of Lovecraft's work of 1919. The lyric poem has a very interesting tone, as it is very repetitive in its first two stanzas, as well as the next two with "the white ship" as the dominant line. The writer of the song wanted to capture the mystic journey that H.P. Lovecraft (Author) had given his character Basil Elton. The lines of the piece transcribe well against the original publication by Lovecraft. The piece includes very vivid imagery with lines "Home through the night here in my darkened room / Sails of white across the misty moon / Floating across the sky," (Line 6-8) that visualize the psychedelic nature of the times as well as the eerie nature of the short story written 48 years earlier.