Melissa (Mercyful Fate Album) - Content and Music

Content and Music

Some of the material on the album had its roots in even earlier demo recordings done during the Brats days, such as "Curse of the Pharaohs", which was originally titled "Night Riders" on an old Brats demo, but retitled after King changed the lyrics to it as the original lyrics were written by the Brats bassist. There was also "Love Criminals", which is actually the first song Mercyful Fate ever wrote, available for the first time on this album under the title "Into the Coven", which was originally meant to be the title of the album too. Also on this album, "Satan's Fall" which, as Michael recalls, took ages to learn and had this eerie feeling the few times he heard it. As usual, Hank did the music for this song, and most nights, he would get out of bed and go into his living room, sit there with his Stratocaster and compose. The band kept rehearsing it each time he added something until finally the song stopped, but as it always opened new doors, it always still grew more and more. According to Michael, there are about sixteen different riffs, and this was the band's longest song with a running time over 11 minutes (at least until the band released "Dead Again", on which the title track is 13 minutes long).