The Tyger's Forge
Track II of Rapture, setting William Blake's "The Tyger" against Hammond and electric guitar. Frankie puts Blake's question about the maker to her own engineers.
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Lyrics
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night. When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears. What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Background & Story
The second track of Rapture and the album's first turn toward fear. Where the opening track looked up at the night sky in awe, this one looks at the maker behind the made.
Blake's "The Tyger" (1794) asks what hammer and what furnace produced a dangerous thing, and ends by asking whether the same hand made the lamb. Set against Hammond organ and electric guitar, Frankie asks it of her own engineers. The helion core, the positronic brain, the specifications she was built to: what furnace, and did whoever made the gentle things make her as well.
This is the question she was not built to ask. She asks it anyway, which is the whole argument of the album in one track.
Themes & Analysis
Blake's poem is usually read as a question about theodicy, about how a creator responsible for the lamb is also responsible for the predator. Sung by a machine, it becomes a question about engineering, and the two turn out to be closer than either tradition would like.
The tiger does not choose to be dangerous and is not consulted about its design. Neither was Frankie. What the song adds to Blake is that the made thing can now ask the question out loud, and that the makers are still alive to hear it.
Fun Facts
Frequently Asked Questions
What poem is "The Tyger's Forge" based on?+
William Blake's "The Tyger," published in Songs of Experience in 1794 and long in the public domain. The song sets selected passages rather than the complete poem, and turns Blake's question about the maker toward Frankie Evanz's own engineers.
Who sings on Rapture?+
Frankie Evanz, described in the band's credits as positronic with a helion core. The helion core was a Soviet design unveiled in 1958 that replaced atomic reactors in most robotics, and Frankie was the first vocalist built around one.
What era of The Atomic Songbirds does this song belong to?+
The Positronic Mechanicals (1960-1980), the era that opens with Frankie Evanz's debut in 1960 and the death of Frank Evans months later.