Songfacts®:

• "The Tell-Tale Heart" is based on a short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's tale is about a fellow who kills an old man because he can't stand the guy's vulture-like eye (sounds silly, but it makes sense within the story). The story is told from the killer's perspective as he makes a rather unpersuasive attempt to convince us that he's sane.
  
  The song follows the same storytelling formula as Poe's tale. Guest vocalist Arthur Brown, best known for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown single "Fire," sings. Backing him on vocals is Jack Harris, an Alan Parsons Project regular. He's also the backing vocalist on another Tales Of Mystery And Imagination track, "(The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether."
• Tales Of Mystery And Imagination is a concept album built around the theme of Edgar Allan Poe's fiction. It's also the debut album by The Alan Parsons Project, but by no means the debut of Parsons himself. By the time he recorded this Project debut, he'd already made his reputation as one of the best sound engineers in the business in the '60s and '70s. He worked with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Al Stuart, the Hollies, Ambrosia, and many others.
• In 2010, the Pennsylvania heavy metal band Slough Feg covered this song on for their album The Animal Spirits.