# What songs are "sinister" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 3, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658 "2005-10-03T23:01:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/41 "2005-10-04T13:43:30Z")
_Green Bird_, off the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack album _No Disc_. Sweet. Delicate. _Fragile_. The background music to mens’ deaths. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/42 "2005-10-04T13:49:34Z")
Wow - I am the first to name these? Cool! **Peter Gabriel** - The Intruder. Off Peter Gabriel 3. Sings from the perspective of a man breaking into a woman’s room, with burglary and rape (or some sort of sexual bad things) on his mind. **The Toadies** - Possum Kingdom, I think is the name. “I will treat you well, my sweet Angel - so help me Jesus.” You know the song. It is told from the standpoint of a murderer trying to get his soon-to-be victim to come behind the boat house so he can kill her - the things he says like “you will be young forever” are ultimately creepy when you understand that context. I get the shivers when I hear it now - and usually have to change the channel. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/43 "2005-10-04T14:23:29Z")
> [@Critical1](#): > > The Turtles, Happy Together. holy creepy lyrics Batman! It’s not creepy, it’s just sad. The start of the song is “IF I should call you up”. Then he goes on about all these happy feelings but he hasn’t told the girl about how he feels. At the very end all he can say to her is “How is the weather?”. Kind of sad. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/44 "2005-10-04T14:31:33Z")
Oh yeah, and: Kenny Rogers, “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”. Crippled Viet Nam vet muses about blowing his straying wife’s head off. Real romantic stuff, there. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/45 "2005-10-04T14:41:43Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > **The Toadies** - Possum Kingdom, I think is the name. “I will treat you well, my sweet Angel - so help me Jesus.” You know the song. It is told from the standpoint of > > a murderer trying to get his soon-to-be victim to come behind the boat house so he can kill her - the things he says like “you will be young forever” are ultimately creepy when you understand that context. > > I get the shivers when I hear it now - and usually have to change the channel. I agree with you, but there are a lot of people convinced that the song is about a vampire because obviously that’s the _only_ way the girl would achieve the line you quoted. No way it could be a reference to photographs :rolleyes: I’d like to add to the list “Change (In The House Of Flies)” by the Deftones. Their music always borders on creepy, and this one is way over the line. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/46 "2005-10-04T14:44:29Z")
**uglybeech** > [@](#): > > Don’t Fear the Reaper, of course. One of the all-time most sinister songs … Yes, and that _ **cowbell** _ certainly adds to its creepiness. 2 **Beatles’** songs I find creepy- “ **I Am The Walrus** ” that laugh “Ho ho ho hee hee hee ha ha ha” and that ending with the quotations from “King Lear” - “bury my body … oh untimely death”. **Come Together** - That echo percussion and its sparse musical backing make it sound creepy. Add to that it was released during the Fall (the Season of the Witch) _and_ it became a hit precisely when the “Paul Is Dead” rumor was at a fever pitch. “one and one and one is three”. (3 Beatles) ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/47 "2005-10-04T15:04:18Z")
“Shoot Out the Lights” by Richard Thompson. To a somewhat lesser extent, “The Calvary Cross” by same. Also, “The One I Love” by R.E.M. The lyrics make no sense to me, but the song sounds entirely evil. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/48 "2005-10-04T15:10:47Z")
> [@kelly5078](#): > > Also, “The One I Love” by R.E.M. The lyrics make no sense to me, but the song sounds entirely evil. the lyrics are about masturbation 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/49 "2005-10-04T15:23:51Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > It’s not creepy, it’s just sad. The start of the song is “IF I should call you up”. > Then he goes on about all these happy feelings but he hasn’t told the girl about how he feels. At the very end all he can say to her is “How is the weather?”. > > Kind of sad. I agree with the original poster of this…totally creepy. _Imgaine me and you I do I think about you day and night It’s only right … Me and you and you and me No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be The only one for me is you, and you for me So happy together_ ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/50 "2005-10-04T15:38:38Z")
**The Mariner’s Revenge Song** by the Decemberists gives me shivers, and reminds me of the Cask of Amontillado and other classic revenge tales. The first verse sets the stage and it only gets creepier from there. \*We are two mariners the only survivors stuck in the belly of a whale: his ribs our ceiling-beams, his guts our carpeting – I guess we’ve got some time to kill. You don’t remember me, I was a boy of three, and you a lad of eighteen. But I remember you and I’ll relate to you how our histories interweave…\* You’re trapped in the dark belly of a whale with one other person, and he happens to be a mad mariner who has been hunting you down since he was three years old? Sinister. ---
**Author:** ![Tixenfleaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@Tixenfleaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tixenfleaz)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/51 "2005-10-04T15:53:21Z")
It may only be about a fellow who is socially inept and lonely, but the vibrating guitars and swirling synthesizer turns **How Soon Is Now** by The Smiths into a wonderfully creepy song. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/52 "2005-10-04T16:10:05Z")
A couple more nominations that strike me as sinister: “Mad Not Mad” by Madness “Ghost Riders in the Sky” (at least in some renditions) There are a few suggestions here that I take exception to. I don’t consider a song “sinister” unless it _sounds_ sinister—i.e. the music and lyrics both have to be dark, eerie, and menacing. Merely creepy subject matter, or a song about violence and death set to bright poppy major-key music (like “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”), doesn’t fit the category. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/53 "2005-10-04T16:14:22Z")
Kinda cheesy, but **Ozzy Ozbourne** ’s _No More Tears_ is the narrative of a stalker who’s telling the woman he just killed that they’re breaking up. _Buenos Tardes Amigo_ by **Ween** is about a man who avenges his brother’s death, but by the end of the song admits he’s actually the one who killed his brother all along. **Elbow** has got a song that starts out with “You’re a girl in this vicinity. I’m a dog without a collar on.” It sounds kind of sinister in a stalker/rapist sort of way, but I think it’s supposed to be seductive. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/54 "2005-10-04T16:25:10Z")
Snakefarm put out a great CD of trad folk songs done in a trip-hop way called “Songs from my Funeral”. (Or “Songs for my Funeral”…the CD says one, the case says the other). They cover songs like “St James Infirmery”, “Banks of the Ohio”, and “Frankie and Johnny”. A really solid album Also, anything by Jim White. “The Wound that Never Heals” is about a serial killing woman: > [@](#): > > Three days later in a bar in southern Mississippi she meets a man by the name of Charles Lee. She introduces herself to him as “Lee Charles” “What a coincidence.” he says…and one week later they are married. He wakes up one night six months down the line to find her staring at him in the oddest way. When he says, “Honey, what’s wrong?” she says, “Oh nothing dear…except that tears are a stupid trick of God.” And by the time they find his body six weeks later… Well hell, she’s a thousand miles away. Or “A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes” > [@](#): > > And what about that preacher man on the run from the law? > He killed a girl in Memphis and ran ’till the dogs tracked him down. > They shot him by the river and as he lay dying in the mud, > well someone asked him, “hey Preacher, where’s your soul going now?” > And Preacher said, “Well, I do not know, but wherever it is I’ll gladly go… > cause today’s a perfect day to chase tornados.” ---
**Author:** ![marque\_elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/55 "2005-10-04T16:28:49Z")
I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned the Cowbot Junkies yet. Everything they do would fall into the eerie to outright sinister category. _I Rise To The Hills_ is about a woman deciding to join the witch’s sabbat. _Misguided Angel_ is a song about a woman planning to leave with her lover who is about as bad a choice as can be made for a lover. _Share With Me A Common Disaster_ is another song about a woman making the wrong choice in a man. Another good source for sinister music is Pentangle. Many of their songs are from the middle ages and are rife with the supernatural and ghosts. _Cruel Sister_ is about two sisters who are rivals for a lord’s affections. One kills the other and marries the lord. Her treachery is exposed to all when a minstrel plays a harp made from the breast bone of the dead sister before the lord. The harp sings of the dead sister’s fate. Another song called _Bruton Town_ is about the daughter of a lord who falls in love with a servant. Her 2 brothers take the servant hunting and murder him and leave his body in a ditch. She finds the body and sits with it for 3 days before hunger drives her home. Much of the music of The Dead Can Dance falls in this category also. \*I’m Stretched On Your Grave \* is sung by a lover who’s mate has died young and how the one left behind yearns to join him/her. Many people have covered\* Long Black Veil\* which is a song sung by the ghost of a hanged man. He was accused of murder and wouldn’t give an alibi because he spent the night of the murder “in the arms of my best friend’s wife.” Now she haunts the hills where he was buried. ---
**Author:** ![Dubious\_Weasle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b782af/32.png) [@Dubious\_Weasle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dubious_Weasle)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/56 "2005-10-04T16:31:41Z")
“Paint it Black” and “Sympathy for the Devil” by The Rolling Stones and of course another vote for Tom Waits and Nick Cave. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/57 "2005-10-04T16:39:24Z")
Verve - Already There The song starts off really quiet and calm, then builds up to > [@](#): > > … > You better pray when the music stops, > when you’re left alone with your mind, > I’ll be hearing music to the day I die. > > Then I heard it turn on, > that’s where I heard the screams, > and all the wild eyes, > you know what I mean, > they’re scared they’ve lost their dream, > they press down on me, > you know I thought I was there. > … The guitar, panpipes and the vocalists voice turn an otherwise mellow song into a pretty creepy one. ---
**Author:** ![Bomzaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Bomzaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bomzaway)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/58 "2005-10-04T17:24:37Z")
The instrumental intro to _Pretty Woman_ by **Van Halen**. I think it epitomizes the idea of a sinister sound. Also, the intro to _One foot out the door_, also by **Van Halen**. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/59 "2005-10-04T17:33:39Z")
> [@marque elf](#): > > Many people have covered\* Long Black Veil\* which is a song sung by the ghost of a hanged man. He was accused of murder and wouldn’t give an alibi because he spent the night of the murder “in the arms of my best friend’s wife.” Now she haunts the hills where he was buried. Mike Ness does a beautiful cover of that song. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658/60 "2005-10-04T17:47:04Z")
For creepy Celtuc, try the Secret Commonwealth. \*Scarecrow Walkin’ The Uninvited Guest The Glowin’ Bones Of Craggy Hope\* and many others. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-songs-are-sinister/324658.md?page=4)