Hello,

I am pleased to present a link to a song I have produced for an upcoming music project. FOLKNIK 3.
The singer and musician is BOB MOSS. It was earlier this year...2010. We were finishing our dark folk music project full of vintage ballads about witches and ghosts. I was living in Nevada City, California at the time, twenty miles from C A Smith's Auburn. We needed a 13th song to round things out. I asked Bob to take a look at NYCTALOPS, to see if he could set it to music. THIS is the result.

[www.youtube.com]

Purists may twitch, and yet I hope some of you like this. I was quite pleased with the results. We tried to give it a bit of religiosity, adding chorus and organ. It is a question and answer song with a Cult of Darkness. We went to the site of Smith's cabin where we planted grape vines, doused the soil with rare liquors and Bob sang Nyctalops. An eerie cold wind enveloped us and then departed.

Another LINK if need be

[www.youtube.com]

Link to Nyctalops

First, I can tell you absolutely, Clark would have loved it! I like it on the whole, couple of small performance points - the word "dew" - Clark did not pronounce it as "dooo", but the more proper "dyoo";
and the word "sidereal" - I would suggest a stronger accent on the second syllable, and a blending or running together of the last two, rather than equally emphasizing all three syllables - for me, that would be more effective and in keeping with the mood.
Minor points - I really appreciate your effort - and I can assure, there is no one who may call himself a purist who knows more about Clark's understanding of sound as a source of meaning, than myself, and in second place would be Don Fryer, whose own poetic sensitivities closely follow those of Clark. For a true poet, "how" the poem means, is as important as the "what", if not more so, because that is what makes it poetry - rhythm and sound - Clark loved the sound of Anglo-Saxon, Old English, and their natural successors such as Gerard Manley Hopkins and Dylan Thomas - liquid power!
Great job - keep it up
(ps: advise the young man to take a few voice lessons so as not to lose his voice while young)

Thank you for your kind words and sensitive advice
concerning Bob Moss's version of NYCTALOPS, which I produced. Your insights
both thrilled us - and will be utterly considered if given the
chance to return to the studio.