Dance of Death, also called Danse Macabre (from the French language), is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer. They were produced to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now-lost mural in the Saints Innocents Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424 to 1425.
The earliest recorded visual example is from the cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris (1424–25). There were also painted schemes in Basel (the earliest dating from c.1440); a series of paintings on canvas by Bernt Notke, in Lübeck (1463); the initial fragment of the original Bernt Notke painting (accomplished at the end of the 15th century) in the St Nicholas' Church, Tallinn, Estonia; the painting at the back wall of the chapel of Sv. Marija na Škrilinama in the Istrian town of Beram (1471), painted by Vincent of Kastav; the painting in the Holy Trinity Church in Hrastovlje in Istria by John of Kastav (1490). There was also a Dance of Death painted in the 1540s on the walls of the cloister of St Paul's Cathedral, London with texts by John Lydgate, which was destroyed in 1549.
The sound of the jungle is beating in my head
But I know my mind aint my own
Why am I still walking when I know I should be dead
Why won’t it leave me alone
My feet move in rhythm to the death dance
But my heart stopped beating long ago
I wanted to live but I had no chance
My mind keeps moving even so
I died 48 hours ago
But I’m still walking around
Something wont let me lie in peace
There aint no rest to be found
The people are dancing around me
The witchdoctor stands and he stares
His magical powers have bound me
The voodoo rites have ensnared
Now they have made me a zombie
I got to do what they say
Now I am in there power
Their aint no escape no way
Wont you come and join in my death dance
The powers of the old ones entwine
You wanted to live you got no chance