Scarlet Town

The words

A portrait of a decaying, haunted town where love, sin and death sit side by side.

The song describes a strange town drawn from old folk balladry, a place full of mourners, sinners, beauty and ruin. Rather than tell a single story, it moves from scene to scene, sketching characters and images in a slow, hypnotic procession. The mood is mournful and eerie, like a ghost story set to a dirge. Banjo and fiddle give it an old-time sound, as if a centuries-old ballad has been reopened and filled with new shadows.