Have you ever been spooked by a song? I don’t get spooked too often by anything but math and standing in bodies of fresh water, but once I was spooked by a song, which you can read about here. To celebrate the spooky spirits this Halloween weekend, what song has spooked you?
Let me be clear about something: No novelty, scaaaarrrrryyyyy songs, please. That stuff makes me hate Halloween. A horror-movie title does not make for a frightening listening experience. I need tales of actually frightening musical moments. I need songs that you could blast as kids approach your door for candy that might cause their parents to call the police on you. Thanks.
(NOTE: I’m eternally let down by Halloween because I never put the effort into it that I should. I really would like to “welcome” kids with a House of Horrors set up, blasting Psychic TV, Glenn Branca’s The Ascension, and other records that I find have the power to disturb, but I never think of this idea until it’s too late. Then Halloween comes and goes and I feel like I’ve blown another chance to celebrate my limited interest in the horror genre: Satanic psychological terror and ghost movies – no slasher and Dracula crap, very little interest in Frankenstein…)
I can think of a few individual songs that manage to send a sharp cold shiver down my spine, but I don’t think they would fit your “scare the trick-or-treating kids” bill — the opening guitar-and-tolling-bell of AC/DC “Hells Bells”, the last lines of Annie Lennox’s “Why”, Bob Mould’s “Hair Stew”, NIN’s “Hurt”.
However, if you made the trick-or-treaters step on a darkened, decorated, strobe-lit front porch to ring for their candy, and blasted a loop of tracks 1, 3, 4, 5 from Joe Jackson’s “Beat Crazy”, the music would impart a pretty good chilling sonic aura in the air! (“Beat Crazy”, “In Every Dream Home (A Nightmare)”, “The Evil Eye”, “Mad At You”)
It still gives me an eerie feeling listening to Gimmie Shelter. The vibe at the opening; that instrument that makes that sounds like records being played backwards; Merry Clayton’s screaming vocals at the end ….. makes me wanna turn all the lights on.
“Gimme Shelter” is an effectively spooky song!
Black Wings by Tom Waits. Vaguely creepy lyrics that he whispers throughout the song but at the end he sings/says “One look in his eyes and everyone denies ever having met him… ever having met him… ever having met him…” as the whispers get quieter. Not sure what he’s going on about but it definitely has a spooky vibe.
Keith Richards plays guitar on that number.
Soooooo good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6If4uSFbgM
beyond frightning
The Psychic TV story reminds me of a college friend who got “in the zone” chemically and flipped out listening to the 1st Black Sabbath record. The fact that he could do it while the rest of us laughed at the absurdity of the whole scene was quite remarkable.
Although I am not prone to excessive fear reactions, I was exposed to both Street Hassle and Joy Division (especially this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPY5TxTdElM) around the same time and remember having a bit of crisis of confidence realizing that life, for some of us, can be so cheap and ugly or bleak and senseless that they go so far down the rathole there is no way back. Musically interesting is that the J.Div song opens with a similar skin-crawly sound as the PsyTV.
Tom Violence &
Expressway To Yr Skull
and a lot of Sonic Youth’s EVOL are pretty witchy sounding.
Dead C.
Teenage Jesus and The Jerks are pretty spooky.
Rudimentary Peni have a scary album called Death Church.
There’s a new Thrash Metal band called Early Man.
They have a song called Nine Riders which scares me in a good way.
Subhumans always freaked me out & certain Big Black tunes are pretty psychotic sounding.
Born Against.
One of these Days by Pink Floyd
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield
The White Album. I said it. Particularly record two leadining into side two. It all culminates with “Revolution 9”, which some will argue is not a song at all. “Helter Skelter” scares me. “Long Long Long” is beautiful, but that ending? There’s a creep factor to the White Album for me.
TB
All of Scott Walker’s “The Drift.” That would freak out any kid.
Hear what I mean:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYyOkQUyJZM