Framed Death and the Maiden by Verlaines 1982

'Death And The Maiden' 7" Single | 1983

Graeme Downes had come through Dunedin’s Logan Park High School a year or so ahead of many of the others that would crowd into the bands that were contemporary with his own. Classical music had been his principal musical interest, apart from some select scraps of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. While he could appreciate the sense of excitement and the democratising of music that the Sex Pistols generated, it was seeing The Clean in 1979 that inspired him to form The Verlaines the following year.

Graeme was at university studying classical music, a course that would take him through to the completion of his doctorate and ultimately a career as an academic at Otago University. Classical music always informed his writing for The Verlaines. Songs could be complex with elaborate arrangements and instrumentation, but there was always structure. A musical system with well-considered melody, harmony, rhythm, and all-important lyrics. It was difficult to construct; sometimes it showed and sometimes it seemed seamless. ‘Death and the Maiden’ is one of the triumphs.