EXHUMED LYRICS

1. Death Revenge Overture

[Instrumental]

2. Defenders Of The Grave

[A welcome to the ghoulish age of late-Georgian Scottish grave-robbery and a warning to the bereaved

"The security inspired by rank and wealth against these irreverent intrusions on the sanctuary of the dead, is, as we all know, a mistaken confidence, since neither marble nor heraldry is a protection against such practices; for what the audacious atrocity of the resurrection-man cannot, the venality of the sexton certainly, will accomplish"
―Thomas Wakely, The Lancet newspaper 1832

"...a coffin was registered with the expressed purpose of frustrating the resurrectionists... designed to be made in cast or wrought iron, with concealed spring catches on the inner side of the lid to prevent levering, and joined in such a way as to thwart any attempt to force the sides of the coffin apart... Some parishes had communal mortsafes or 'jankers' – huge coffin-shaped pieces of stone or metal put on new graves."
―Ruth Richardson Death, Dissection, and the Destitute 1987

"Resurrection men, your fate deplore,
Retire with fore vexation,
Your mystery's gone, your art's no more,
No more your occupation :
Surgeons no more shall ye ransack
The grave with feelings callous
Tho' on the Old Bailey turn'd your back,
Your only hopes the gallows"
―Mr. Diben The Patent Cof in 1818]

Stalk through hallowed headstones
For notes and coin, trade flesh and bone
Your eternal rest may, become nocturnal wrest

The newly deceased, still bereaved
Snatched from their peace, taken without leave
Truncated repose, for the decomposed

Adamantine clasp of the mortsafe, the muddy bonds of earth
Patent coffins do not vouchsafe, calm repose beneath the turf

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor six feet of sod a grave
Pray the lord your soul to take, you'll need defenders of the

Graves' occupants, so dearly prized
But to butcher, not to eulogize
To rest they were laid, now sold under the blade

Who turns the key to the mortsafe, when the sexton stuffs his purse?
Nightwatchmen cannot vouchsafe, calm repose beneath the turf

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor six feet of sod a grave
So pray the lord your soul to take, you'll need defenders of the grave
Defenders of the grave, hallmarks of this ghoulish age
Defenders of the grave, defenders of the

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]
[Solo: Michael Burke]

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor shovels full of sod a grave
So pray the lord your soul to take, you'll need defenders of the grave
Defenders of the grave, hallmarks of this ghoulish age
Defenders of the grave, defenders of the – grave

3. Lifeless

[In which the boyhoods of Dr. Knox and William Hare mold their decrepit destinies

"...From my earliest childhood I have been a dreamer and a visionary.... I have dwelt ever apart from the visible world. Well did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees, and often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of a waning moon – but of these things I must not now speak. I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets...."
―H.P Lovecraft, The Tomb]

[Dr. Knox:]
Mem'ry haunts me clearly
The winter of my thirteenth year
Wind moaned through headstones dreary
A siren song only I could hear
A fevered brain infected
Where terrors spawned each night
A young man grew dejected
A waking dream, a fright amongst frights

[Dr. Knox:]
Though my symptoms at last abated
And the coughing fits did surcease
An insalubrious nature gestated
Breeding malaise, a subtle disease

[Narrator:]
Then with each passing breath
In life, he dwelt in death
[Dr. Knox:]
This truth I now confess:

[Dr. Knox:]
A morbid mind obsessed
Unhealthy thoughts depressed
By cryptic dreams possessed
To ever dwell among, the lifeless

Lifeless!

[Hare:]
A casket-builder's low-born boy
Child of the grave in name and fact
Grey days and nights in dark employ
Set destiny 'pon its deathly path

[Hare:]
Dismissed as morbid youth
Obsessions quite uncouth
Led to unpleasant truths

[Hare / Dr. Knox:]
A morbid mind obsessed
Unhealthy thoughts depressed
By cryptic dreams possessed
To ever dwell among, the lifeless
As all life ends in death
So with each passing breath
My destiny professed
To ever dwell among, the lifeless

[Dr. Knox:]
Into the family crypt, I stealthily crept
Knowing not what I sought 'mongst the mold and the rot
A sight that was not soon forgot
And as I lay in the grave, finding the solace I'd craved
At peace there with the decayed, though they called me depraved
It was there a dark path was paved

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]
[Solo: Michael Burke]

[Dr. Knox / Hare:]
A morbid mind obsessed
Unhealthy thoughts depressed
By cryptic dreams possessed
To ever dwell among, the lifeless
As all life ends in death
So with each passing breath
A destiny professed
To ever dwell among, the lifeless

4. Dead End

[In which most unwholesome paths are set upon by our protagonists, the future Dr. Knox and young William Hare, to the chagrin of polite society.

"These heads of the profession convert the science of which they are ever chattering, into a mean and sordid trade, and those institutions which were founded in the purest spirit of benevolence and philanthropy, are transformed into warehouses of human wretchedness"
―The Lancet newspaper editorial 1829

"It is disgusting to talk of anatomy as a science, whilst it is cultivated by a means of practices which would disgrace a race of cannibals"
―The Lancet newspaper editorial 1832

"Anatomy is the basis of surgery... it informs the head, guides the hand, and familiarizes the heart to a kind of necessary inhumanity"
―William Hunter's introductory lecture to anatomy students 1780

"The outcasts of society, who, being pointed out as resurrection men, unable to maintain themselves by any honest employment and are driven to become thieves and housebreakers..."
―Benjamin Brodie Observations 1832]

[Dr. Knox:]
My occupation was a'calling, like a tumor, it within me swelled
A path some found appalling, that I would come to know so well
A cadaverous career awaited, the filthy task I'd undertake
With a gruesome thirst for knowledge, that only the dead could slake
My studies dismissed as morbid, incurring the headmaster's scorn
My deathly imagination derided, and into the darkness borne
From clandestine forays into graveyards, to the operating theater's grisly scenes

My bloody studies dug ever deeper into the obscene and the unclean

[Narrator:]
For in death's sleep what dreams may come?
And in death's name, what deeds must be done

[Dr. Knox:]
As an anatomist, a necrologist
But I'll never be an apologist
My chosen path, to carve up stiffs
A career dismissed as a dead end
A surgeon's trade, a butcher's blade
You mourn a rest to which you won't be laid
To serve my much derided trade
Your legacy will fade to a dead end

[Solo: Michael Burke:]

[Hare:]
The pounding of my father's coffin-nails beat a dolorous refrain
But by staving in those caskets, a richer living could be gained
My heart beat time with the hammer-falls, I learned to pluck men from the grave

And earned the name of "resurrection-man," plying that reviled trade

[Narrator:]
For in death's sleep what dreams may come?
And in death's name, what deeds must be done -

[Hare:]
As a resurrectionist, a necrologist
But I'll never be an apologist
My chosen path, to dig up stiffs
A career dismissed as a dead end

[Dr. Knox:]
A surgeon's trade,
[Hare:]
a wooden spade

[Dr. Knox / Hare:]
You mourn a rest to which you won't be laid
To serve our much benighted trades
Your legacy will fade to a dead end

5. Night Work

[In which Dr. Knox makes the acquaintance of Misters Burke and Hare, Resurrectionists by trade

"The bulk of the work was done at night, using wooden shovels... and a "dark lanthorn" – a device commonly used by burglars: designed to shed light where necessary, but not to attract attention... A hole would be dug at the head of the grave, down to the coffin, and hooks or a crow-bar inserted under the lid. The weight of earth on the rest of the lid acted as a counter-weight, so that when pressure was exerted lid invariably snapped across, and the body could be hoisted out of the grave with ropes."
―Ruth Richardson Death, Dissection, and the Destitute 1987

"The corporation of corpse-stealers, I am told, support themselves and Families very comfortably, and that no-one should be surprised at the Nature of Such a Society, the late Resurrectionists in St. Saviours, St. Giles's and St. Pancras churchyards, are memorable Instances of this laudable Profession."
―Anonymous A View of London and Westminster 1728

"Blest be ye man [that] spares these stones,
And curste be ye [that] moves my bones"
―William Shakespeare's epitaph 1616]

[Hare:]
Welcome to our nocturnal vocation
Disembalming we grimly extract the expired
Disinterring by lanthorn illumination
To fulfill anatomists' cadaverous desires –

[Dr. Knox:]
Giving Nightwatchmen fits
With the mortsafes you've picked
Finding fresh graves to dig,
I must say it's a hell of a gig

[Chorus:]
Night work be done,
The lifeless made graveless, our prize to be won
Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights
This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken tonight

[Hare:]
A livelihood in death we scrape
Your casket vacant, corpse taken forthwith
From our fell spades you will not escape
Second coming ignominious, unclean and sick –

[Dr. Knox:]
Wooden shovels and picks,
From your tomb you'll be nicked
Sink to new depths of sick,
Compunction cut to the quick

[Chorus:]
Night work be done,
The lifeless made graveless, our prize to be won
Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights
This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken tonight

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]

[Dr. Knox:]
It's a dirty job, finding fresh graves to rob

[Solo: Michael Burke]

[Dr. Knox:]
These are dirty deeds, six feet of dirt, dug dirt cheap

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]

[Dr. Knox:]
It's a dirty job, finding fresh graves to rob
Toil as the casket's slaves, death is our living wage

[Chorus:]
Night work be done,
The lifeless made graveless, our prize to be won
Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights
This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken this -

Night work be done,
The lifeless made graveless, our prize to be won
Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights
This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken tonight

6. Unspeakable

[In which Mister Hare, spurred by greed and the lack of ethics of the anatomists, proposes a drastic and loathsome course of action

"...a wretch who is not worth a farthing while alive, becomes a valuable article when knock'd on the head and carried to an anatomist; and acting on this principle, have clear'd the streets of some of those miserable offcasts of society, whom nobody miss'd because nobody wish'd to see them again"
―Sir Walter Scott

"If this horrid traffic in human flesh be not, by some means or other, prevented, the churchyards will not be secure against the shovel of the midnight plunderer, nor the public against the dagger of the midnight assassin."
―Editorial, The Lancet newspaper 1829

"...when there is a difficulty in obtaining bodies, and their value is so great, you absolutely throw a temptation in the way of these men to commit murder for the purpose of selling the bodies of their victims."
―Sir Henry Halford, May 1828]

[Dr. Knox:]
Cold stiffs may fetch five sovereigns
Warmer bodies a few schilling more
Trade in death to make a living
Ghastly currency of gore
Your cadaveric chores, so

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Dr. Knox:]
The freshest of corpses through most heinous courses
[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Dr. Knox:]
The warmer the corpse
The more rich the reward
In this foul trade of flesh, bone and gore

[Dr. Knox:]
Fresher specimens are ever needed
The scalpel thirsts for still-warm death
Law and decorum should go unheeded
When prices soar for a pound of flesh
So I may slice up what's left

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Hare:]
Just think what we'll gain
When we harvest the slain

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Hare:]
And the throats we would slit
Would never be missed

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Burke:]
And so business is furthered
By cold-blooded murder?

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Dr. Knox:]
The demand has increased
For the freshly deceased
And so now the living you'll reap

[Hare:]
The cemeteries crawl with sentries
The sexton demands his bribe
Graveyard gates ensure their entries
Remain inhumed inside
Yet another source of bodies
Surrounds us every day
Is not every soul but a corpse to be?
And should we not just speed them on their way?

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]

[Solo: Michael Burke]

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Burke:]
Compunction be dashed
Though this course may seem rash

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Hare:]
There's so much more profit
When we fill the coffins

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Hare:]
The tramps and the urchins
We'll make fodder for surgeons

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

[Dr. Knox:]
They live lives without worth
Death cannot be much worse
Wretched ways to make your purse burst

[Chorus:]
Unspeakable!

7. Gravemakers Of Edinburgh

[Instrumental]

8. The Harrowing

[In which Burke and Hare master the irredeemable art of procuring the freshest specimens of cadaver by the most nefarious means imaginable

"'Knowst thou not any, whom corrupting gold
Would tempt unto a close exploit of death?'
'I know a discontented Irishman,
whose humble means match not his haughty mind.
Gold were as good as twenty orators,
and will, no doubt, tempt him to do any thing'"
―Richard III, William Shakespeare

"In Edina town, where your friend you may meet
At morning, in health, walking forth in the street
And, at evening, decoy'd and depriv'd of life
His corpse fresh and warm is laid out for the knife"
―Edinburgh Broadsheet 1832]

[Hare:]
The first corpse was mere happenstance
But the second was no accident
The end soon followed pitiably
Choking out curses 'til his life was spent

[Dr. Knox:]
Each morrow the kill comes easier
Murder grown precise
Asphyxiated bodies bear testament
To your mastery – of this most deadly device

[Dr. Knox:]
A corpse is but a corpse
How they are obtained, is not my concern
So long as they come to my door

[Hare:]
With coppers o'er blind eyes, like the one you've turned

[Dr. Knox:]
Death is the last fact of life, scrawled out by dissecting knives

[Hare:]
As I'm taking your life

[Chorus:]
You won't survive the harrowing

[Hare:]
So gasp your last breath as you choke, incomprehension, of life's final joke

[Dr. Knox:]
At the end of your rope

[Chorus:]
Now your hope is narrowing
You won't survive the harrowing

[Hare:]
At first I felt revulsion
Which then gave way to fear
Finally came apathy
And at last I came to see things clearly

[Dr. Knox:]
A reaver that hunts by gaslight
The stranglehold comes grim and cold
But your wallet filled with notes and coins
Weighs more 'pon you, then all of the dead you have sold

[Dr. Knox:]
A corpse is but a corpse
How they are obtained, is not my concern
So long as they come to my door

[Hare:]
With coppers o'er blind eyes, like the one you've turned

[Dr. Knox:]
Death is the last fact of life, scrawled out by dissecting knives

[Hare:]
As I'm taking your life

[Chorus:]
You won't survive the harrowing

[Hare:]
So gasp your last breath as you choke, incomprehension, of life's final joke

[Dr. Knox:]
At the end of your rope

[Chorus:]
Now your hope is narrowing
Death is overpowering
You won't survive the harrowing

[Solo: Michael Burke]

[Duet: Michael Burke / Matthew Harvey]

[Dr. Knox:]
Death is the last act of life, post-scripted by dissecting knives

[Hare:]
To which I'm giving your life

[Chorus:]
You won't survive the harrowing

[Hare:]
Gasp your last breath as you choke, incomprehension, of life's final joke

[Dr. Knox:]
At the end of your rope

[Chorus:]
Now your hope is narrowing
Death is overpowering
Life's but time you're borrowing
You won't survive the harrowing

9. A Funeral Party

[In which a shocking discovery is made in West Port, Edinburgh, the repellent nature and lurid details of which stun and shock the city to its very core

"...a most extraordinary circumstance that took place on Friday night, the 31st October 1828, in a House in the West Port, Edinburgh, where an old Woman of the name of Campbell is supposed to have been Murdered, and her Body Sold to a Medical Doctor."
―Edinburgh Broadsheet 3rd of November, 1828

"Up the close and down the stair
But and been with Burke and Hare
Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief
Knox the boy that buys the beef"
―19th century Edinburgh skipping rhyme]

[Hare:]
Follow me to my humble lodging
What's mine is yours, such as it may be

[Dr. Knox:]
Enjoy the hospitality, soon you'll be cold dead anatomy

[Hare:]
Along the narrow, crooked wynd
Then through the close, this house you'll find

[Dr. Knox:]
So many honored guests to fete, always an empty bed to let

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Hare:]
Drink up, the hour is growing late

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Dr. Knox:]
The fete will end when you meet your fate

[Hare:]
Here you may rest from your journeys
And warm your bones with a dram of whiskey

[Dr. Knox:]
Drink to what's left of your health, soon you'll be another corpse to sell

[Hare:]
Intoxicated, the room starts to spin
And at that moment our night work begins

[Dr. Knox:]
Quietly asphyxiate, you see your end, but far too late

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Burke:]
Drink up, the hour is growing late

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Dr. Knox:]
S tuff the carcass in a crate

[Narrator:]
All revels must come to their end
So for the constable the tenants send
False friends meet most unpleasant ends
The corpus delicti now made evident

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]

[Solo: Michael Burke]

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Burke:]
Step inside and have a quaff

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Hare:]
Where guests soon shuffle off

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Narrator:]
Protests of innocence rebuffed

[Chorus:]
A funeral party

[Narrator:]
The life of the party – snuffed

10. The Anatomy Act Of 1832

[Instrumental]

11. Incarnadined Hands

[In which pangs of conscience at last pierce the veil of our heroes' occluded consciences, long since numbed by their morbid professions

"But woe to the riches and skill thus obtained,
Woe to the wretch that would injure the dead
And woe go his portion whose fingers are stained
With the red drops of life that he cruelly shed"
―Ballad of William Burke circa 1829

"[had] the receiver of these sixteen strangled bodies been punishable as well as the murderer, the crimes, which have cast a stain on the character of the nation and of human nature, would not have been committed"
―Thomas Wakely The Lancet newspaper 21st March, 1829]

[Dr. Knox:]
What is a man? Is he the sum of his beliefs?
Or is he measured by the depths of his misdeeds?
Is he but flesh and bone? The sum of component parts?
Is he what he has wrought? Or what he has torn apart?

[Hare:]
Our abhorrent enterprise, so deeply despised
But evidence, I'll provide, to spare my own hide

[Hare:]
I'll send Burke to his grave
To be betrayed by incarnadined hands

[Dr. Knox:]
Am I a butcher uncouth?
The telltale truth are these incarnadined hands

[Dr. Knox:]
Am I a slaughterer or a surgeon? A taker or giver of life?

[Hare:]
A thief or a murderer? For which crime am I to be tried?

[Dr. Knox:]
So many I've anatomized, truly I was desensitized I never failed to edify,
[Hare:]
Nor to brutalize

[Dr. Knox:]
The stain of the grave
I am betrayed by incarnadined hands

[Burke:]
The meager length of the noose
The punishment due for incarnadined hands

[Dr. Knox:]
Please tell me who I am
Please tell me who I am!

[Solo: Michael Burke]

[Dr. Knox:]
What is a man? Is he the end or is he the means?

[Burke:]
For lucre's gleam, undertaking hideous misdeeds

[Dr. Knox:]
I once thought I knew, but now I see it true
When you look into death, it looks back into you

[Dr. Knox:]
The stain of the grave
I am betrayed by incarnadined hands

[Burke:]
The meager length of the noose
The punishment due for incarnadined hands

[Dr. Knox / Hare:]
Please tell me who I am

12. Death Revenge

[In which the final grim realization is reached

"The mob, which was immense... received with shouts the solitary wretch who found his way to the gallows out of the five or six who seem not less guilty than he."
―Sir Walter Scott, 28th of January 1829

"...The town of Edinburgh was filled with an immense crowd of spectators, from all places of the surrounding country, to witness the execution of a Monster, whose crime stands unparalleled in the annals of Scotland."
―Edinburgh Broadsheet 1829

"Every effort [had been] employed to convert my misfortune into positive and intended personal guilt of the most dreadful character..."
―Dr. Robert Knox 1829

"The sickly and the hale
Were murder'd, pack'd up, and sent off
To Knox's human sale
That man of skill, with subjects warm
Was frequently supplied
Nor did he question when or how
The persons brought had died!"
―Edinburgh children's verse circa 1829

"That his class received him, in consequence of these horrid disclosures, with three cheers... that savage yell within those blood-stained walls is no more, to the voice of the public, than so much squeaking and grunting in a pig-sty during a storm of thunder.... and instead of serving to convince anyone... of their lecturer's innocence, it has had... the very opposite effect – exhibiting a ruffian recklessness of general opinion and feeling on a most appalling subject."
―Christopher North Blackwood, 1829]

[Dr. Knox:]
A "noxious" butcher, a name they will rue
When their carcasses yield postmortem truths
Although Burke and Hare, have their usefulness proved
From their sordid acts, I stand far removed
But now from the grave's final jape

I shan't emerge wholly unscathed
From this calumny there's no escape
A lifetime of work that may all go to waste
A gentleman born, now stained by disgrace
Once a surgeon, now a ghoul in his place

[Dr. Knox:]
Death and life forever intertwined
And within their vulgar minds
The penny dreadful they seek they will find, they'll have their death revenge I plied my trade bound to the grave
Now they've labeled me depraved
My name and my work bear their stain, this is their death revenge

[Hare:]
Burke alone stands judged for both our transgressions
The hangman awaits him, then postmortem dissection
Yet all that peers back from the looking glass
Are the ghosts of my past, screaming to their last

[Hare:]
And now my grave, final jape
Is writ large on Burke's cadaverous face
From the noose he shall have no escape
Why let both of our lives go to waste?
In my confession the blame lay misplaced
Once a man, soon a corpse in his place

[Hare:]
Forfeit his life to extend mine
Thus ends our partnership in crime
Lady justice though said to be blind, still takes her death revenge

[Burke:]
I earned my living from the grave
And committed acts depraved
Life ends unsaved and betrayed, the price paid:
Death Revenge

[Solo: Matthew Harvey]

[Solo: Michael Burke]

[Dr. Knox / Hare:]
Death and life forever intertwined
And within the morbid mind
There's only darkness left to find, the final death revenge
We lived our lives within the grave
And in turn became depraved
And now naught remains to be saved, the final death revenge

13. Death Revenge Underture

[Instrumental]






EXHUMED LYRICS