The Twin Peaks Soundtrack (from the TV series) has always managed to immediately whisk me back to my high school days, huddled up on the couch with a blanket, wondering what completely odd and disconcerting scenes would be haunting me from that week’s episode.
The opening song to The Incredible Hulk series… it always seemed so meloncholy.
Wicked Game by Chris Isaks
In Your Eyes By Peter Gabriel
So in Love by k.d.lang
Oh yeah, and “Earth Angel”, especially on a car radio and parked by water.
Wandering Stars is haunting as hell. That bass line and the clarinet…
Robert Johnson’s Me and The Devil Blues.
The Fishes from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens.
I’ll add another to my list, the theme from the first Rocky movie. Mainly when there’s the…oh hell, I don’t know what you’d call it, AAAAAAAAing?
The choral arrangement of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. The string arrangement is good, too, but nowhere near as haunting.
The Circus - Erasure (something about the accordian sounding synth with a reggae/circus-y beat)
Hallowed Ground - Erasure
One of Our Submarines - Thomas Dolby (very haunting)
Whisper to a Scream - Icicle Works
Several by Jimmy Somerville: For a Friend, Tomorrow, Disenchanted, There’s More to Love (Than Boy Meets Girl), So Cold The Night.
Even more by The Smiths: How Soon Is Now?, Girlfriend In a Coma, Unhappy Birthday, A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, What Difference Does It Make?, Hairdresser On Fire, Panic, and many more.
I’ve always that Here With Me by Dido was sung from a ghosts point of vew.
I won’t go
I can’t sleep
I can’t breathe
till you’re resting here with me.
Oh and Cadillac Ranch by Bruce Springsteen is about taking that last ride in a herse, (made by Cadillac).
Oh, there are so many…
Big Wreck - The Oaf
Bruce Hornsby - That’s Just the Way It Is
Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane (Natural Born Killers version)
Crowded House - Don’t Dream It’s Over
Enya - Anywhere Is
Fuel - Innocent
George Michael - Father Figure
INXS - Beautiful Girl
INXS - I Need You Tonight
Jump Little Children - Cathedrals
PM Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss
Porno for Pyros - Pets
Simple Minds - Don’t You Forget About Me
Smithereens - Blood and Roses
Tears for Fears - Break it Down Again
The Cure - A Forest
The Verve Pipe - The Freshmen
I think it’s eerie how much Isaaks sounds like Roy Orbison in that one.
speaking of Orbison, the movie BLUE VELVET makes his IN DREAMS (“A candy colored clown they call the sandman…”) take on a total new dimension of creepiness (Thanks, Dean Stockwell!)
Wow. I thought it was just me … like maybe the adolescent angst-ridden state I was in when I first heard a particular song. But nearly all the songs you’ve all mentioned (that I know) cause a catch in my heart when I hear them, so maybe it’s somewhat universal.
Some of that melancholy can be traced to lyrics with basic human appeal. Boys of Summer is about not being able to let go of something that was beautiful but brief, for instance, and In Your Eyes is about having a connection so intense that the mundane details of daily life only clutter and distract. Those are my interpretations, anyway.
My nominations:
The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove - Dead Can Dance (Okay, this one isn’t too haunting, but it is a little bit.)
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
Hurt - Johnny Cash (My husband and I heard this for the first time the day Cash died. He played it on his PC–we sit back to back in our computer room–while he watched the video. I didn’t see the video at all. When it was over, we turned to look at each other, and we were both crying. I can’t remember the last time a song made me cry.)
The whole of “A Storm In Heaven” by The Verve. Shoegazing is possibly the genre you’re looking for, although The Verve changed their style at least three times through their career, ASIH and some of their early B Sides like 6 O’clock are very haunting.
If anyone can help me figure out the name of this song, I can list it as one of my haunting favorites.
I’ve heard it about a million times, although most of the time it’s some sort of remix of the original song. Some lyrics are “I did my best to (carry on?)” sung in a style reminiscent of that Enya song from the movie Gladiator. The song I’m looking for is currently being used in the beginning of the previews for that new Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. Anyone know what I’m talking about?
Desperados Under the Eaves.
The end of the song is entrancing to me. I found myself humming at work the other day.
AL
“Some Other Time” by Alan Parsons Project
“Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd
Oh, and two more:
“Dance the Night Away” by Cream
“Still You Turn Me On” by Emerson, Lake, & Palmer
i like the Gayenne ballet suite by Gennadi Rezhdestvensky. its on the 2001 soundtrack, and its on the closing credits to Aliens. hauntingly beautiful, yo.
i have no idea how to pronounce his name though.
is this desire? by PJ Harvey
its all over by the God Machine
3 libras by a perfect circle