writing archive: dance with the devil: "the wanting comes in waves/repaid"- the decemberists

Heavy and heaving, “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid” is a nearly seven-minute hypnotic trance from the “Hazards of Love” album. Filled with throbbing instrumentals and haunting vocals, the Decemberists pry right into the corners of your mind, a deal with the devil seeping through your skin. The song features Colin Meloy as William, a forest dweller seeking freedom from his mother, the Queen, for just one night, while she, voiced by Shara Worden, responds to her ungrateful son’s fleeting wishes. William’s desire to be free flies unfettered through his rising refrains of “[t]he wanting comes in waves”. He calls out at first that he “wants this night” but as time progresses, the tension mounts and he cries out in desperation to the Queen, “you owe me life!” The Queen’s meditated, eerie responses seal William’s fate, as the debt between the two no longer binds her in favor to him. Her apparent anger morphs to use against William should he fail to comply, and as she consents to his request, she sharpens her scythe with which to exact potential punishment. The rushing joy of a wish granted sinks into oblivion, as the Queen in closing chants her refrain that the debt is repaid, with the mystic air of a spell being cast. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” wrote Congreve, and William’s arrangement with the Queen gave him merely a taste of what’s to come should he disobey her.
--as written for a binghamton university spring 2010 writing course