To see the lyrics, click on the name of the version you are interested in (on the left).

Once again Neil Hannon wrote a song based on a book by Francis Scott Fitzgerald (cf. Bernice). The song is a summary of book 2 chapter 3 of This Side Of Paradise. The first line is the same as the first sentence of the passage, except that Neil inversed to words for the rhythm and the rhyme.

Now you know that Poe is a American poet who wrote, among others, ‘Ulalume’; that ‘Les sanglots longs des violons’ is taken from a French poem by Verlaine entitled ‘Chanson d’automne’; and that Don Juan is a Spanish womaniser. So just let me add that Maryland is the name of the US state where the character spends his holidays.

As for the music, the intro was largely inspired by Kraftwerk.