Scary Records

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Appalachian music is an interest of mine, and I know lots of songs where people die in various ways. These are not especially scary in themselves, but just some examples of the sorts of things that happen to people in harmless little folk songs:

They pine away:

“Today you may mourn the death of my lover/Tomorrow you will mourn mine” – Earl Colvin

Or do away with themselves:

“I wish I was on yonders hill/Where I met my love often/I’ll stab myself with a silver blade/Beside my true love’s coffin” – The Death of Geordie

Or, in the subgenre known as incest ballads, they have (very) loving brothers:

“I have a baby in my side/All caused by my brother and I” – Lizie May

Who kill them:

“He’s took out his long penknife/And murdered her one, two and three.” – Lizie May

They are done in by their mothers:

“I laid my son in a tiny box/And sent him off to sea/Where he may sink or he may swim/But he’ll never come back to me” – Mary Hamilton

Who hang for it:

“They carried her into Glesca town/The gallows for to see” – Mary Hamilton

They get killed by their boyfriends:

“He took her to the water’s edge/And watched her as she floated down.” – Omie Wise

Who are sometimes very bad choices:

“He sank the ship in a great flame flash/And took her off to hell” – The Demon Lover

Or they are killed in revenge, as in the most gruesome and horrible of all the murder ballads:

“There was blood in the kitchen/Blood in the hall/Blood in the nursert/And blood over all” – Lambkin

Catrandom, admittedly indulging herself :slight_smile:

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Cat:

Are you familiar with Kristen “Ex-Throwing Muse” Hersch’s album MURDER, MISERY, AND THEN GOODNIGHT?

It’s been called the “spinsterish American cousin” to Nick Cave’s much more famous album MURDER BALLADS.

She recorded it for her little sons…lots of old Appalachian songs her parents sang to her when she was a tot, probably brutalizing her for life.

It includes the most deranged version of “What’ll We Do With the Baby-o” I’ve ever heard, complete with her husband and kinds banging on kitchen pots. Add that one to my list of spooky music.

Uke

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How about DM’s Barrel Of A Gun and No Good? Both of those songs are creepy as hell. I get really creeped when I listen to any DM song about an ungerage kid (Question Of Time and Little Fifteen come to mind).

Another vote for Rush’s Witch hunt.

Iron Maiden has a few: Number Of The Beast, Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner, and Stranger In A Strange Land stand out.

Velvet Edge by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult.

Just about anything by NIN.

Possum Kingdom and Tyler by The Toadies.

You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.

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What about that “song” at the end of Pearl Jam’s Vitology CD, “Hey, foxymophandlemama, that’s me”?

I actually think they intended it to be funny, but it weirds me out in a major way.

“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Ukulele Ike:
Cat:

Are you familiar with Kristen “Ex-Throwing Muse” Hersch’s album MURDER, MISERY, AND THEN GOODNIGHT?

/QUOTE]

No, but I’ll seek it out. I love Appalachian music, but – for one reason or another – especially the grim ones. This sounds right up my alley :slight_smile: Thanks for the referral.

It’s not Appalachian, but has anyone ever heard Ed McCurdy’s “Blood, Booze and Bones” album? His slow version of “Yo, Ho, Ho” is right up there for all-time creepiness, and the album has a nifty British Lambkin, too. McCurdy just died, actually :frowning:

Catrandom