Fellow Fishpeople!

Today is Solstice. So I asked myself how to concatenate that with some of my interests in one seasonal post? (Open water swimming, H.P. Lovecraft fan, baby-eating atheist and existentialist.)

I’m a fan of the HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s Scary Solstice “carols”. In fact when I hear the “real” version on the radio, I substitute the HPLHS lyrics, such as Silent Night, Blasphemous Night, It’s the most horrible time of the year, Away in a Madhouse” or Unholy night, etc, etc.

So I’ve gone with a great YouTube video of one of my favourites, , based on the story The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Dee’s favourite Lovecraft story.

Sing it to yourself while you are swimming on Christmas day.

And here’s the lyrics for your singing pleasure.

It’s beginning to look a lot like fish-men
Everywhere I go;
From the minute I got to town
And started to look around
I thought these ill-bred people’s gillslits showed.
I’m beginning to hear a lot of fish-men
Right outside my door,
As I try to escape in fright
To the moonlit Innsmouth night
I can hear some more.

They speak with guttural croaks and to hear them provokes
A profound desire to flee
Their eyes never blink and quite frankly they stink
Like a carcass washed up from the sea.

I wish I’d paid attention to that crazy drunken man.
He tried to warn me all about old Marsh’s Deep One clan.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Fish-men
Everywhere I go;
They can dynamite Devil Reef,
but that’ll bring no relief,
Y’ha N’thlei is deeper than they know.
I’ll continue to see a lot of fish-men
That I guarantee.
For the fish-man I really fear
is the one who’s in the mirror
And he looks like me.
He looks just like me.

Happy Solstice!