Say what one will about Tool’s proggish habits, they’ve got more than enough of a metal bite to separate themselves from the flatulent pussy rock that characterizes the genre. I found myself satisfyingly creeped-out listening to “Vicarious” (cranked up to 11) in my car a few nights ago, and tried to remember the last time I thought a good new rock song was actually scary. It certainly has been a while, perhaps not since Tool’s last release.
So, share your picks for seething rock crunchers and dirges that don’t suck, and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I loves me a good black metal orgy on occasion, and now’s as good a time as any to refresh our memories!
The Beatles - I Want You (She’s So Heavy). It just careens madly between those two verses, and it’s got that sluggish riff that drags and drags. When the white noise starts near the end, you wonder if it’s actually screaming. The first time I heard that song, I was standing outside on a sunny spring day, and I still thought it was pretty scary.
We Could Leave Right Now by Oysterband. I read a review that called it a ‘tender love song’. No way! It’s either about a suicide pact or a serial killer approaching his next victim. Either way, It’s scary.
Love in a Faithless Country by Richard Thompson. Inspired by the moors murderers. 'Nuff said.
Interesting pick…reminded me of another reasonably scary Beatles tune, “Yer Blues”…
In the morning wanna die
In the evening wanna die
If I ain’t dead already
Ooh girl you know the reason why.
Another lurching guitar riff with a lot of screaming. According to Lennon, when he wrote the song, he was strung out, sleep-deprived, lovesick, and meant every word of it.
Byrne & Eno’s The Jezebel Spirit, off of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. It’s creepy world music with a great beat, and the vocals are simply “found” audio of a priest performing an exorcism.
They could be creepy when they felt like it.
If we keep discussing the Beatles, someone will eventually mention the cheery-sounding but jealous “Run for Your Life” [“I’d rather see you dead little girl/than to be with another man”], so I might as well do it now. I always thought Paul McCartney sounds like he’s losing it in “Oh! Darling” - it’s not scary, but the apparent craziness makes it one of my favorite Paul songs.
Swamp, by Talking Heads. Conjures up Medieval images of the Devil, without necessarily all this modernist ultraviolent stuff, but nonetheless paints a picture of unswervingly unavoidable and pleasureless debauchery.
Marley, I too wondered when someone would bring up Run for your Life.
Well I never realized that the Beatles were so proficient at “rock and roll creepiness”.
Listen to the end of “I Am The Walrus”. I believe that’s the Mike Sammes’ (sp?) singers making that “oompa, oompa” chant. Making it even scarier are the quotes from “King Lear” (Act IV Scene VI)
"… bury my body and deliver the letters which thou findst about me to Edmund Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out upon the English party … Oh untimely death "
Since the person speaking is dying, those lines are spoken in a painfully drawn out manner. Couple this with the fact that this was major evidence for the “Paul Is Dead” urban legend (Fall of 1969), and the song takes on another helping of eerieness.
The entire song is creepy but that ending really cinches it.
“Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye” :eek:
A lot of people associate the Beatles with chearful, mainstream pop, but they could be extremely ominous and bizarre at times, especially after they discovered LSD and went all experimental.
Scott Walker’s new album, “The Drift,” is such a terrifying listen that I’ve only listened to the album once. Pretty amazing, considering he’s a 60-something ex-orch pop balladeer. I defy anyone here to listen to “Jesse” or “Clara” alone.
Jeez, that whole “Murder Ballads” album scares the bejabbers out of me. Someone once told me that in the course of the album, it details the deaths of over 200 people.
It’s so bloodthirsty, yet is for the most part simple and kind of folksy.
Maynard was pretty up front about having been ripping off King Crimson for years. Even though they practically invented prog (that’s another debate - don’t flame me here), they had pretty much ditched it by the mid-70’s. The songs of theirs which could be called terrifying achieve that effect without words. I’d nominate the title tune from Thrak, but a lot of the other examples are improvs from their self-bootlegged live sessions. Listen to “Entrance of the Crims” from “Absent Lovers” for an example.
KC co-founder Robert Fripp also did a piece with the Robert Fripp String Quartet called “Threnody for Souls in Torment”. Not easy listening.
There are some really interesting responses to this thread so far. I’ve always been a little freaked out by the Tom Jones song “Delilah”. Mr. Thrown Panties sings a nice little song about stabbing women to death. Good times.