Echo & the Bunnymen Songs - The Killing Moon Lyrics

Echo & the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon

Echo & the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Ocean Rain
Released: 1984

The Killing Moon Lyrics

Under blue moon I saw you
So soon you'll take me
Up in your arms
Too late to beg you or cancel it
Though I know it must be the killing time
Unwillingly mine

Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him

In starlit nights I saw you
So cruelly you kissed me
Your lips a magic world
Your sky all hung with jewels
The Killing Moon
Will come too soon

Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him

Under blue moon I saw you
So soon you'll take me
Up in your arms
Too late to beg you or cancel it
Though I know it must be the killing time
Unwillingly mine

Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
You give yourself to him

La la la la la
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him

La la la la la

Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him

Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him

La la la la la

Writer/s: MCCULLOCH, IAN STEPHEN / SERGEANT, WILLIAM ALFRED / PATTINSON, LESLIE THOMAS / DE FREITAS, PETER LOUIS VINCENT
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Killing Moon

This was recorded at Crescent Studio in Bath, Somerset. After catching a cold, frontman Ian McCulloch completed the recording of his vocals at Amazon Studio in Liverpool, where Pete de Freitas also completed the drumming.

This song is the opener to the Donnie Darko movie soundtrack. Guitarist Will Sergeant recalled to The Guardian in a April 2015 interview: "Years after it was a hit, we got an email saying this bloke wanted to use the song in a film, Donnie Darko, which we didn't think would go anywhere, so accepted a one-off £3,000. Then when the director did the director's cut he replaced 'The Killing Moon' with 'Never Tear Us Apart' by INXS. Aren't some people knobheads?"

McCulloch told Uncut magazine issue 138: "You don't need to read The Bible, you can listen to 'The Killing Moon' and get as much out of it. It's the greatest song ever written."

McCulloch (from Mojo magazine March 2012): "I woke up with that lyric, 'Fate up against your will,' as if God had given it to me in my sleep. Recently I realised what it is - it's that soliloquy, 'To be or not to be' - but it's even better, because I'm f---in' singing it."

The song's Middle Eastern-tinged instrumentation was inspired by a vacation that bassist Les Pattinson and guitarist Will Sergeant spent in Russia. Pattinson told Uncut August 2014: "Me and Will had been in Russia for a holiday, and there was this band playing balalaikas in a hotel foyer, really cheesy cabaret. But it was fantastic and we just started messing about and the next thing is we've got a chorus for 'The Killing Moon'. It was just brilliant."

Will Sergeant added: "Adam Peters came and did cellos and double-tracked it to make it sound like an orchestra. I reversed the reverb of the autoharp going in on the chorus chords so you get a big 'whoosh' sound. I got a Vox Teardrop 12-string."

David Bowie inspired the song's formation: "I played David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' backwards, then started messing around with the chords," McCulloch recalled to The Guardian. "By the time I'd finished, it sounded nothing like 'Space Oddity.'"