Elea Calvet - Filthy Lucre (Official Music Video)

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Filthy Lucre by Elea Calvet, released on the 11th of January 2025 on Hyssop & Victoria

Listen to Filthy Lucre:

As it’s quite an obscure number, I thought I’d share a little on its provenience for all that may not be familiar with it.

Based on an iteration of Albert Camus’ play “The Misunderstanding”, Filthy Lucre is a rendering of his life and journey from the protagonists perspective, and the unfurling of his thoughts in his final moments.

It is founded primarily on the version of “The misunderstanding” referenced in Camus’ novel, “The stranger”. This variation is all the more macabre and tragic than the original, and the first one that I encountered.

It depicts a man who left Czechoslovakia to build a life of wealth. Which he, through unrelenting labour, in time achieves.

25 years later, he returns to visit with his wife Maria and his young child. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, his sister and mother have been running a hotel where they m*rder and rob wealthy customers.

He goes to said hotel on his own and his mother and sister do not recognise him. As a joke, he then decides to book a room and stay for the night before revealing his identity. His wife, Maria, asks him not to and warns it isn’t wise, a caution he pays no heed to.

Not knowing who he truly is, and due to his evident affluence in full display, his mother and sister devise a scheme to k*ll him within the night. A plan they carry out to fruition. Only to realise what they have done, too late.

In their agonising despair upon this realisation, they both commit su*cide. The mother hang*ng herself and the sister jumping into a well.

LYRICS:

Worked for ten thousand days
Waited ten thousand nights
Found myself a lover
Named our only child

Sifted the earth deep and wide
To pile up mountains of gold
I thought to unload
‘neath your bellowing eyes

How impetuous of me
Bore this fallacy
Only not to stupefy

Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria you were right

Treaded through acres of snow
To bring you my love yond your door
I could not find the words
To reveal my disguise

Take my life
Take one, two, three
How impetuous of me
Why bear such a fallacy

Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria you were right

How was I to know
What a macabre curtain call
Would pry, coil ‘round and swallow
All divide

Worked for ten thousand days
Waited ten thousand nights
Found myself a lover
Named our only child

How impetuous of me
Bore this fallacy
Only not to stupefy

Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria you were right

Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria you were right

Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria
Oh Maria you were right