The third installment in my countdown of creepy Halloween songs ...
It wasn't until my junior year of college that I discovered the myriad bizarre joys of Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians. Filtering the lysergic perspective of vintage Syd Barrett through a Byrds-y, pastoral pop sensibility, ex-Soft Boys leader Hitchcock found an endearing middle-ground between Dadaist absurdity and hummable, hook-laden whimsy.
The particular track I'm highlighting here comes from an roundly engrossing odds n' sods collection Robyn released in 1986 called Invisible Hitchcock. Sounding none too removed from the afore-cited "11 Mustachioed Daughters" by the Bonzo Dog Band (which predated it by at least a decade), "Let There Be More Darkness" ominously unspools a doomy creation narrative with a frightening twist, prodding the innate fear of the dark (and the unknown that waits within) that each of us privately harbors. My collegiate classmate Ben and I used to crank this unsettling track at inconvenient hours of the night after some hearty imbibing in the hopes of psychically scarring the neighbors. I'd like to think it worked. Play it loud, ... but try to remember where the door knob is.
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