O Fortuna, velut luna
Statu variabilis
Semper crescis, aut decrescis;
Vita detestabilis
Nunc obdurat et tunc curat
Ludo mentis aciem,
Egestatem, potestatem
Dissolvit ut glaciem…

Now this is where the armor starts clanking and the heavens start trembling. Because I was ten years old in April 1981 when John Boorman’s epic masterpiece Excalibur hit theaters. And my entire world shattered into chivalric escapism.

All the while Carmina Burana becoming the soundtrack to my scrappy, fantasy-literature-devouring, D&D-obsessed dorky self.

(And yes, before you start complaining, I am well aware that 6th century knights didn’t wear plate armor and used boiled leather instead. Relax, we’re talking fantasy here. Bite me.)

I don’t know about all y’all but I can’t even think about the mystic fire of Arthurian legend without hearing those voices, that impossible choir summoning apocalypse and ecstasy in equal measure. Carmina Burana isn’t just a piece of music; it’s the sound of swords being raised against the darkness. A battle cry for gods, kings, sinners, and dreamers, all realizing that destiny doesn’t ask for volunteers.

German composer Carl Orff premiered Carmina Burana 1937, drawing from medieval poems about lust, fortune, and mortality, but it took Excalibur in 1981 to fuse it forever into our collective medieval unconscious. Picture it: Arthur, gleaming in silver, the grail still lost, the kingdom rotting from within, and that choir rising like divine judgment itself.

“O Fortuna” doesn’t play during the moment; it is the moment.

Nothing escapes this music. The wheel turns, kingdoms fall, knights crumble, and the gods… do whatever it is gods do. Mostly gaze upon Helen Mirren in a metal breastplate summoning and conjuring and what was I talking about again?

Ah yes. Arthuriana. You know, maybe it’s just the nerd in me who yearns for heroic greatness. But for a few glorious seconds, as the chorus swells and the strings swoop and the brass blares, I feel infinite. Like maybe I too could draw the sword from the stone and face whatever apocalypse waits in the fog.

So yeah, that’s why Carmina Burana belongs on our Buttkickin’ Halloween playlist. Because nothing screams spooky season quite like a choir of angels screaming about fate while the world burns beautifully to the ground.

O Fortune, like the moon
You are changeable,
Ever waxing, ever waning;
Hateful life
First oppresses, and then soothes
Deceptive and brilliant
Poverty and power
It melts them like ice…