I raid my record collection and randomly rediscover the tracks of my years...
Music creeps me out. I find myself at times swooning with the vapors and calling for the smelling salts at the mere hum of a merry tune or a whistle while at work. Who knows the deep-seated causation? Sure, there have been some sharps and flats in my life that have held me bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, or fighting vainly the ol' ennui. Perhaps I'm suffering a psychotic reaction, but then I count five and get myself back in the race, ignoring for the moment that as a boy Screamin' Jay Hawkins put a spell on me, courtesy of border blaster XERB and Wolfman Jack. I even took my troubles down to Madame Rue — you know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth? — to not avail, alas.
Now if I was to just drop in to see what condition my condition was in — to paraphrase Shockmeister Kenny Rogers -- I too might find that I saw so much I broke my mind, and that certain songs have cropped up from time to time to further shatter my delicate sensibilities. Enough at least to compile this tragically inexhaustive and dispensable compendium of musical treats that scare me trickless. The Yardbirds' '66 slice of embryonic but overawing psychedelia "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," takes full advantage of the fact and force corollary with stellar guitarists Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page being on hand to thrust and parry, or coalesce for sonic sense assaults that sink "deep into the well of time." Even 45 years later! Good job, guys.
Peter Gabriel's third eponymous album from 1980, a masterwork chock full of shock and prescient paranoia that will melt your face off, kicks off with the tone-setting "Intruder" that triggers the right amount of menacing force and domino reaction. Moving on, "I Don't Remember" gains a walloping sense of modern paranoia and privacy infringement from its stormtroopers-in-the-studio sound and what could be a precognitive TSA-on-Parade Day. Furthermore, if "All shades of opinion / Feed an open mind," what does it mean when you're — as the scabrous and exclusionary song title denotes — "Not One of Us"? The percussive beat, meanwhile, drums in the message, reiterating: "You're not one of us/ Not one of us/ No you're not one of us..."
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Article comments
1 - El Bicho
great job as always.
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thank you, sir.
3 - JANK
Not bad but I've been doing this sort of thing too:
...13 Disturbing & Unsettling songs
01) "Witches Song" Marianne Faithful - 'Do you feel the panic, can you see the fear?' The ever-increasing groaning and howling rising up in the background can't be good....
02) "The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey" Joni Mitchell - a killer in the Hollywood Hills chillingly described; More Howling. Extraordinary acoustic Heavy Metal ending
03) "Moon Over Boubon Street" & "Sister Moon" Sting - more from the inside of a howling mind...
04) "Psycho Killer" Talking Heads - 'Can't sleep 'cause my beds on fire...' run run run away.
05) "The Nile Song" Pink Floyd - describes being howlingly dragged into the Nile by a beautiful temptress. Early heavy metal 1967; Recommended.
06) "Jackie" Sinnead O'Connor - literal chills as "She" walks the beach waiting and wailing all these long years for her sailor boy to come home; the ending wail is to be believed.
07) "Wuthering Heights" Kate Bush - "She" is now pleading at your window and "She" used to be your lover. She's cold Now what?
08) "The Bogus Man" Roxy Music - the psychopath is chasing you and now is 'clutching at your throat'; the sonics are truly disturbing and unsettling.
09) "Season Of The Witch" Donovan - wonderfully satanical guitar riff & the organ fills accentuate a mood of 'you looking in your window...'
10) "Black Sabbath" Black Sabbath - Satan is facing you backed with awesome devil power chords known to have been banned since the 1600s; you can't run
11) "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" Pink Floyd. The Scream started here.
12) "The Black Rider" Tom Waits. The devil is a carnival barker and he 'Will drink your blood like wine'. No kidding.
13) "White Blur #2" Aphex Twin - play this at 2am and tell me the 'laughing' and disturbing effects do not unnerve you. Beyond spooky.
4 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Good list, though I would have opted for Kate Bush's heart-pounding "Get Out of My House" (from The Dreaming), where emerging from the cacophony of chaos, someone would rather be a mule. Its also said to be based on The Shining, and I've always found Stephen King scarier than Emily Bronte.
I had also considered "Psycho Killer" but dismissed it as too obvious, though if I was going for a more comprehensive list (I left a lot on the cutting room floor), I would have picked Elvis Costello's version of Leon Payne's "Psycho," a creepy song from the perspective of Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower Sniper who killed 16 people and wounded many more in 1966.
Sample lyrics:
Oh you recall that little girl mama
I believe her name was Betty Clark
Oh don't tell me that she's dead mama
'Cause I just saw her in the park
We were sitting on a bench mama
Thinking of a game to play
Seems I was holding a wrench mama
Then my mind just walked away
You think I'm psycho don't you mama
I didn't mean to break your cup
You think I'm psycho don't you mama
Mama why don't you get up?
5 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
I also hasten to add Tom Wait's daunting version of "Heigh-Ho! (The Dwarfs' Marching Song)" from Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, which sounds just like you imagine it would.