With the Press Release out it’s time to drop the charade.

My new single is called The Book of Love, after the bestselling novel of the same name by the American author Kathleen McGowan. Kathleen is an internationally acclaimed author who has sold millions of copies of her books in 60 languages and who is a frequent guest on the American news shows. Kathleen is a phenomenon. I had the privilege to talk to Kathleen on Skype during an interview for my Internet Podcasting Station Radio Rennessence in February of this year. My Rennessence colleagues Filip Coppens, Andrew Gough and myself were really impressed by Kathleen’s deep knowledge of the early European history, its mysteries and the way she knitted everything together into a coherent logical story. I had already read her previous book The Expected One and the sequel to that The Book of Love was about to come out. After the interview we hooked up on Facebook and Kathleen sent me a copy of her book to read.

What I read in the Book of Love simply blew me away. The Expected One was a good book but this one was formidable. Without giving away the entire plot, she pieces together the life of Mathilda of Tuscany who allegedly owned a copy of the Libro Rosso, containing a gospel written by Christ himself and given to his alleged spouse Mary-Magdalene. Now from my extensive research into and around the Mystery of Rennes-le-Château I know many of the legends and tales recounting how Mary-Magdalene set foot in southern France after the crucifixion. I am not a religious man. I am from the school of “there-must-be-something-ism”. I do however have an endless fascination for the true history of Christianity that I share with Kathleen. The book is highly recommended to anyone who likes a great story based on actual facts. The novel format Kathleen uses makes for a fantastically compelling and entertaining story that has everything a great tale needs. Love, hate, intrigue, heroes and enemies. All this against a meticulously painted historical backdrop. It grabbed me like no book had done before.

For a long time I had the idea to do a concept-album around a mystery theme. A way for me to do an English album and to create a crossover between my activities as a Mystery Researcher and as a Recording Artist. At the same time I thought the whole thing would feel too manufactured as a concept and never really made a start. That is until after I met Kathleen. We met up in May in Bruges (Belgium), where Kathleen was attending the procession of the Holy Blood with some friends and some fellow researchers. Much to my regret I couldn’t join her on the rest of her trip through Europe as my business called me elsewhere. It was then that I decided I had to do something with this new energy I had found and proposed to do a song around The Book of Love and its predecessor. She loved the idea. It took a while to find the time to write but when I started, I finished the song in no time at all.

My song The Book of Love is about Love with a capital L. It tells of Mary-Magdalene, the woman who fell in love with the Man who knew he wouldn’t get very old and intended to die for the salvation of everybody else. The bitter irony in that is beating me senseless. She took his legacy, his ideas and allegedly his gospel to Europe and continued his work in the name of love. Now whether you are a believer or not, whether you believe that Jesus and Mary-Magdalene were in love, engaged, married, a mum-and-dad or not: it is one hell, or should I say heaven of a story.

I am very proud to say that Kathleen loves the song. She actively participated in getting the lyrics just right and is looking for ways to get it to the attention of her readers. She authorized me to use the title of her book so we could really link up our works.

Needless to say that I feel enormously privileged to have been given this opportunity, being an obscure Dutch artist with an inpronouncable name (try “Coriander Wrath”and you’ll be 95% there . The fact that I can link my song to the monumental work of an internationally famous writer feels quite unreal at times but when I woke up this morning it was still there so here I am.

You can listen to the song in the player on the right side of this page. I am really interested to hear what you think, so perhaps you can leave a reaction below this post.

If you really like it, you can buy it in all the major online stores, just pick your favorite one:

Take care | Corjan de Raaf

O, and here are the lyrics of the song:

The Book of Love

the book of love