"The Raven" is a 1976 song by the Alan Parsons Project

The Alan Parsons Project

The Alan Parsons Project was a British progressive rock band, active between 1975 and 1990, consisting of singer Eric Woolfson and keyboardist Alan Parsons surrounded by a varying number of session musicians....

 from their album Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the debut album by the progressive rock group The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1976. The album's avant-garde soundscapes kept it from being a blockbuster, but the interesting lyrical and musical themes — retellings of horror stories and poetry by...

. The song is based on the Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 poem of the same name

The Raven

"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness...

. It is well-known as being one of the first rock songs to use a vocoder

Vocoder

A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...

, developed by EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

, to distort vocals. It is also one of the few songs by the band featuring the vocals of Alan Parsons

Alan Parsons

Alan Parsons is a British audio engineer, musician, and record producer. He was involved with the production of several significant albums, including The Beatles' Abbey Road and Let It Be, as well as Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon for which Pink Floyd credit him as an important contributor...

. The 1987 reissue

Reissue

A reissue is the repeated issue of a published work. In common usage, it refers to an album which has been released at least once before and is released again, sometimes with alterations or additions....

d version of the song contains a guitar solo

Guitar solo

In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

 near the end, before the "nevermore, nevermore, never" refrain and a few licks between the lyrics.
Actor Leonard Whiting

Leonard Whiting

Leonard Whiting is a British actor who starred as Romeo in the 1968 Zeffirelli film version of Romeo and Juliet opposite Olivia Hussey's Juliet, a role which earned him the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor....

 performs the lead vocals.

In 2004 the choral band Gregorian

Gregorian

Gregorian might refer to:* The thought or ideology of Pope Gregory I or Pope Gregory VII *Things named for Pope Gregory I:**Gregorian chant** Gregorian mass**Brotherhood of Saint Gregory...

 made a cover of the song for their "The Dark Side" album.