The song The Book of Love by Corjan de Raaf was inspired by Kathleen McGowan’s bestselling novel of the same name. The song captures the bitter irony and associated emotions of the woman who fell in love with the one man who had to die for the salvation of everyone else. In a few lines of text, the songwriter sketches how Mary Magdalene’s unconditional love for the man and his ideas survived time through her imagery and the secret Book Jesus allegedly left her.

With his song, Corjan de Raaf establishes a crossover between his careers as a recording artist and his work as a researcher and publicist around the mystery of Rennes-le-Château.

Kathleen McGowan and De Raaf first met during an interview for Radio Rennessence in February 2009. They met up in Bruges, Belgium in May of that year where the author was attending the Procession of the Blood.

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About Corjan de Raaf

Corjan de Raaf is probably best known in the international world of Mystery Hunters for his contributions to the research into the Mystery of Rennes-le-Château. The enigma around the French priest Bérenger Saunière who became rich and powerful almost overnight after he had made a mysterious discovery, has captivated audiences for decades and inspired countless books. Today, Corjan de Raaf’s website RLC Research is one of the biggest and most authoritative english sites in the field. At the same time, De Raaf has published a large number of audio interviews with authors and researchers in the genre on Radio Rennessence, a mystery podcast website that he set-up with research colleagues Filip Coppens and Andrew Gough.

Corjan’s career as a recording artist started in September 2005 when he was the first artist to launch a single on a USB Stick. His USB Single Dief (Thief) occupied the first place of the Dutch Legal Download Top 100 for 5 weeks. This year De Raaf finished his first full lenght album Scenes. It contains 13 Dutch language songs and an English version of the song that started it all: Thief.

Corjan de Raaf about The Book of Love

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 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. It would be a way for me to do an English album, reach a new audience 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.

I am very interested to hear what you think about this song, perhaps you can leave your reactions at the bottom of this page?

Take care | Corjan de Raaf

Song Lyrics

The Book of Love

a rose gives you its beauty
but hurts you with its thorns
the symbol of unity
can be too painful to hold

like the story of the woman
who loved this one man
who died for his devotion
for the others in the land

love can conquer anything
but I’m sure
that she also felt the pain

when blood was washed away
the love remained
every time she called your name

it started in her heart
this miracle
and the book that lived on
after you’d gone

Magdalene brought love

it cannot be extinguished
it cannot be ignored
it cannot be denied now
of the woman and the lord

the symbols in the churches
the parchments and the stones
the clues in all the searches
will lead you straight towards

the love she carried with her
the sweet music
for those with the ears to hear

when blood was washed away
the love remained
every time she called your name

it started in her heart
this miracle
and it stayed there after all

we waited for so long
to learn the truth
it’s been hiding behind legends of you

in your book
the book of love