In the last several weeks, lots of Googlers have been exhuming this post of mine from last year, tallying my top ten scariest songs for Halloween. Just to bring things up to date, I thought I'd go ahead and compile ten more spooky, scary, disquieting `choons for the holiday in question. Seek them out, do.
10. "Black Eyed Dog" by Nick Drake - On the surface, this deceptively simple acoustic folk number sounds positively jaunty and pastoral (and was even used by the director of the abortive romantic comedy, "Serendipity," to score a montage of John Cusack's fumbling attempt to court a comely Kate Beckinsale), but closer inspection portrays a very different sort've song. Punctuated by Drake's signature finger-picking, the haunting riff and Drake's own fragile, shivering vocals tell the tale of a man predicting his own untimely death. Given the troubled troubadour's tenuous grasp on sanity, spiralling depression and, ultimately, early demise, it is impossible to listen to this song without noting its disquietingly creepy prescience. The black eyed dog that knows his name and calls at his door is Death itself.
9. "Long, Long, Long" by the Beatles - Frankly speaking, there are several songs off The Beatles (a.k.a "The White Album") that I'd qualify as "creepy" or vaguely unsettling ("Revolution #9" always used to bother me), but "Long, Long, Long" -- specifically its ending -- used to send me scampering out of the room when I was a wee lad. After a drowsily subtle three minute love song by George Harrison comes a bizarre, incongruous series of noises, notably a growing tone, an ominous rattle, a car's engine and a ghostly wail (from Yoko?). I have no idea what it's doing there, tacked onto a simple tune, but in the context of the infamous "Paul is Dead" hoax (which claimed that McCartney died in a car accident), it seemed like a spooky allusion to same. It still kinda freaks me out.
8. "Goodbye Horses" by Q. Lazzarus - I know it's not exactly a household name -- let alone an immediately familiar tune -- but all it takes is the first couple of notes of this eerily soulful, brooding synth pop song to conjure the indelibley freakish scene of serial killer Jamie "Buffalo Bill" Gumb from Jonathan Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs," dancing in his basement in macabre drag in front of his mirror. Folks keen on tracking down the song in question are forced to seek out the soundtrack to a different Demme film, "Married to the Mob" (as an extra hurdle, that disc is out of print, so check on eBay). Evidently, Demme just really digs the tune.
7. "Subway Song" by the Cure - Not at all dissimilar from "The Prey" by the Dead Kennedys and/or "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" by the Jam, this sombre song from the Cure's first LP spins a creepy yarn about a woman alone in London's maze-like subway system who thinks she might hear footsteps behind her. The dirgey tune drearily ends, and the fruition comes after a pause in the form a blood-curdling scream. If you're not ready for it, it'll scare the crap outta ya.
6. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" by Pink Floyd - The title kinda tells you everything you need to know (let alone expect) from this otherwise masturbatory prog-rock organ jam from the `Floyd's entirely unwieldly album, Ummagumma. After some lengthy keyboard noodling, the mysterious Eugene starts to get a little agressively careless with the axe in question, prompting hysterical screams from Roger Waters.
5. "Poptones" by Public Image Limited - From the relentlessly dour Metal Box, "Poptones" -- rife with Jah Wobble's dubby bass gurglings and Keith Levene's fractured guitars (sounding like a haunted caliope) -- paints a picture of a bizarre abduction, torture and execution of a hapless, naked victim deep in the woods. According to Lydon's harrowing narrative, the culprits played a specific pop tune (hence the title) on the cassette deck during their proceedings, over and over and over again, compounding the torture. Lovely.
4. "Stigmata Martyr" by Bauhaus - Steeped in arcane religious imagery (largely concerning the crucifixion), this track is presented so hoarily that it verges on self-parody. Replete with ominous basslines, spine-tingling guitar scrapings, a savage riff, a creepily discordant operatic backdrop, Peter Murphy's portentious bellowing and even some backwards Latin, "Stigmata Martyr" is a harrowing exorcism in under four minutes. I remember an anecdote from my friend Rob wherein he subjected his long-suffering father to an unsolicited afternoon of his favorite music. Rob's dad endured noodley Iron Maiden epics and bombastic U2 anthems in polite silence, but when Rob put on "Stigmata Martyr," Rob's dad got up and abrupty scraped the needle of the vinyl with a succint, "that's enough of that freaky crap!"
3. "Come to Daddy" by the Virgin Prunes - Not to be confused with the Aphex Twin single of the same name, this repulsive ten minute exhortation by U2's evil, cross-dressing twins features the most hypnotic, relentless bass line heard since the Birthday Party's "Mutiny in Heaven." Predating Aphex Twin's similarly disquieting but mercifully less explicit single by about sixteen years, the `Prunes' "Come to Daddy" wallows in the emotional violence, degradation and life-warping horror of incest. The tireless, pounding beat briefly subsides around the eight minute mark, upon which vocalists Gavin Friday and Guggi slither into your ears, whispering maniacally about guilt, sin and self-loathing until Gavin ushers the storm back in, howling, "NO ONE CARES ABOUT MOMMY!" Simultaneously compelling and stomach-turning.
2. "Deep in the Woods" by the Birthday Party - Honestly speaking, you could cite just about any track by the Birthday Party in a list of creepy songs, but this visceral ditty from the Bad Seed e.p. (also availalbe on the entirely ass-whuptastic Hits compilation) takes the black, maggot-riddled cake. Over a suitably violent backdrop, then-hirsute hellion, Nick Cave spits out a fetid, filth-caked yarn about a splattery slaying and makeshift burial deep in the woods (hence the title). Easy listening this ain't.
1. "The Sewage Worker's Birthday Party" by Coil - As is the case with their antipodean brethren in the Birthday Party, one could cite virtually any song by Coil as suitable for a list of scary songs, given the band's penchant for the surreal and nightmarish (especially on their first couple of albums). This particular track from their debut album, Scatalogy, however, remains especially diquieting. A sound collage consisting of stentorian drumming and artfully arranged guitar feeback, "The Sewage Worker's Birthday Party" isn't musically disturbing (the brooding malaise of "At the Heart of It All" from the same album is a thousand times more unsettling), but it's the subject matter (as detailed in the liner notes) that puts this track at the top of this list. Decorum foribds my explicit description of it here, but suffice it to say, the narrative involves someone being bound, gagged and forcibly tethered to a toilet bowl, at which point they're forced to.....well, tell ya what: why don't you go pick up a copy of Scatology for yourself if you're keen to find out how this story ends. Adding insult to injury, the late Jhonn Balance of Coil is on record as verifying the authenticity of the "slurping" sounds heard towards the climax of this track. Bon Appetit!
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