In the vein of the “Sesame Street Shorts…” thread.
When I was a youngun’, I remember being seriously creeped out by the Anne Murray song “Angie Baby”. You know, the song about the insane girl who does nothing all day but listen to the radio and fantasize about imaginary lovers, then one day a neighbor boy breaks in, apparently intending to rape her, and she cranks the volume, then turns is down, sucking him into the speaker, or something…
When I was in my late twenties, I was over at a friend’s house, and he put “Angie Baby” on the turntable (some of us still own vinyl, btw), and the creepy memories returned…
So, do you have memories of being creeped out by particular popular songs when you were an anklebiter?
I had an LP of “American Folk Songs for Kids” (or some title of that ilk). I hated “John Henry” and “Casey Jones” for two reasons: A) they both died, and B) I had male relatives who worked in both the coal mines and the railroads. Go figure. Mom always had to be nearby to skip those songs whenever I wanted to hear it (I wasn’t allowed to touch the stereo system), 'cause I liked the other songs on there, and would end up crying my eyes out if either of those two started playing. (I was three. I semi-got over it eventually, when I could change the records myself). Still don’t like those two songs.
A song that went “Toy land, toy land, beautiful girl and boy land… blah blah… once you’re in, you never get out!” I think it was supposed to be about society and gender identification. It was on a record for kids that most people my age were given by their ex-hippie parents. What a creepy old man singer.
[nitpick]That was sung by Helen Reddy, of “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar” fame. The song was written by Alan O’Day, whose best-known hit was “Undercover Angel,” which he performed himself.
There were a couple of things that there were alternate lyrics to when I was a kid. Sung to the tune of “The Old Gray Mare” the words started out “Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts…” and ended up with “…and me without a spoon.”
Then there was the alternate version to “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean” that went: “My bonnie has tuberculosis. My Bonnie she has but one lung. She coughs up her bloody corruption, and lolls it around on her tongue.”
Those weren’t recorded, but they grossed everybody out.
Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb (I think… the one that starts with “Hello? (hello, hello) Is there anybody out there?”). My sister used to play it in her bedroom at night, and I would lie on the other side of the wall, in my bed, and hear this voice like there was a guy trapped somewhere…
The ending of Kiss’ “Black Diamond” scared me because of how the music slows down at the end. I must have been 7 or 8 when I first heard this song (my older sister was an avid Kiss fan at the time and she had all their records) The way they slow it down gave me this creepy impression of what it would be like if everything around me started slowing down until eventually the whole world came to a stop.
I was majorly creeped out by “Hotel California”. I remember first hearing it on one of those long famly road trips. A hotel where you can never leave? Scary!
Flying Purple People Eater [Anyone know the artist?]
The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia By Vicki cough Lawrence. They hung an innocent man? Yikes!
The Entire ‘Atom Heart Mother’ Album by Pink Floyd. I wasn’t really a kid, but I had a very bad trip, triggered by that album, when I was 13! God that was awful!
I used to have a really creepy babysitter, very molester-ish, who played some song that had little kids singing
“My name is Jimmy, I got a nickel…”
It might be “Playground in my Mind”, but I am probably wrong. I refuse to listen to the song to this day, it still creeps me out.
[/nitpick]