Avalon

Frontman Bryan Ferry has hailed "Avalon," from Roxy Music's eighth and final album of the same name, as a "swan song." The ballad takes place at the end of a sophisticated soirée, with Ferry singing to the object of his affection from across the room: Now the party's over I'm so tired Then I see you coming Out of nowhere The lyrics are suggestive of Ferry's personal life at the time. After more than a decade in Roxy Music, he soon broke up the band to settle into a more domestic life with his soon-to-be-wife, Lucy Helmore.

Avalon is the mythical island of Arthurian legend where King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, was forged. It is also his final resting place after he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Camlann. "Avalon is part of the King Arthur legend and is a very romantic thing, when King Arthur dies, the Queens ferry him off to Avalon, which is sort of an enchanted island," Ferry explained to NME on June 19, 1982. "It's the ultimate romantic fantasy place."

That's Lucy Helmore on the Avalon album cover. Photographed on a lake by her family home in Ireland, where Ferry wrote much of Avalon, it depicts her wearing a medieval helmet with a falcon perched on her gloved hand, evoking King Arthur's last journey to the mysterious land of Avalon. Helmore, a model and socialite, was married to Ferry from 1982 until 2003; they had four children together: Otis, Isaac, Tara, and Merlin. She remarried in 2006 to Robin Birley, the son of Lady Annabel Goldsmith, and died on July 23, 2018 aged 58.