Music that frightens you...

Show Biz Kids

 

The first time I listened to "Revolution 9", I found it quite disturbing and scary (I was a kid). Thank God I didn't know anything about the "turn me on, dead man" affair, because it would have kept me from sleeping for weeks! "E5150" by Black Sabbath used to gave me the creeps too back then.

 

NOT the albums he recorded himself, but that album of songs that the Family recorded AFTER Charlie Manson was in jail -- someone played me that (bootleg) album on CD one time, and man it is creepy as all get out . It was like the Mothra song combined with hippie folk rock.


Another one that's not the first thing most people would probably think of as scary, but "Child Is Father To The Man" from the Beach Boys' Smile has always been especially creepy-crawly for me. I've been marveling at the eerie vibe on that one, ever since I first heard it on bootleg in the early '90s. Especially that short little early instrumental version of the tag, on the Smile deluxe box set, with the beautiful fuzz guitar and rumbling drums.... The first time I got the Smile box, I must have stopped the CD player and repeated that one little short segment maybe ten or fifteen times in a row. I couldn't believe how mesmerizing and goosebump-inducing it was.

 

Its a toss up between the solo album by that guy Fred Schneider from the B 52's or the William Hung (from Anerican Idol) album.

 

Under the right conditions, I often find The Doors to be a little intense (sometimes a little too theatrical ,borderline comical)
Not To Touch The Earth , Horse Latitudes and most of Strange Days still can be frightening.

 

I've always loved creepy music. Well, not always, especially when I went through a horror phase (I frighten rather easily), but now the sound of the tritone makes me grin evilly and dissonance makes me smile. I guess I just love the thrill. Stuff like "Black Sabbath" doesn't frighten me, it's more exhilirating (don't know how to spell that, sorry) than anything. "Careful With That Axe Eugene" scared me the first time I heard it, only because I didn't know Roger could scream like that. Now it's forever on my Halloween playlist. My neighbors shall hate me even more in several weeks...

However, I do get put a little bit on edge by songs with a calliope beat to them. A good example is Elvis Costello's "Sunday's Best", which is that waltzy circus-type sound, compiled with lyrics like "don't look now under the bed/an arm, a leg, and a severed head". I don't know if it's the concept of turning a happy sounding tune into something dark or if there's just something inherently creepy about the "3/4 / 4/4" (damn syntax) dichotomy that those beats have (hard to explain - it's either a fast 3/4 or a slow 4/4 with triplets: 1-2-3 2-2-3 3-2-3 4-2-3).

 

This used to give me the willies, especially when listening on headphones.

 

Nothing that currently makes my skin crawl, but the Beatles' "Run for Your Life" was scary to me, as I recall when hearing it on the radio when I was 5 or 6 years old, in particular the lines "You better run for your life if you can, little girl...that's the end, little girl" (I guess I was worried about little boys, too).

Sticking with McCartney, I also found the music during and following the main chorus of "Live and Let Die" to be ominous when it first came out.

Doug

 

"Frankie Teardrop" from the Suicide debut is one to avoid if you are home alone late at night :-

 

All boy bands...

 

thinking about it...
I heard Cold Turkey from John Lennon the other day! Is there anything more scary than a man screaming?

 

The "orchestra frenzy" buildup in The Beatles' A Day In The Life kind of freaked me out the first time I heard it because I wasn't expecting it based on what I'd heard of the song up to that point.

 

When I was a little kid about 6, my babysitter used to scare me with the beginning of this record.
I used to think the "howling" at the beginning of this record was scary!! LOL!

 

One of my earliest musical memories was hearing the Moody Blues' "Nights In White Satin" at my grandparent's cabin deep in the woods, on a little transitor radio, right around dusk. Between the backing vocals combined with the Mellotrone, and then the spoken bit at the end, I was scared s***less.

Now it's one of my favorite songs of all time.

 

Relisten

 

The bells & surrounding music in the 'dream of a witches' sabbath' part of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.

 

Where I was in my late teens, I'd have a few drinks and puffs, turn out the lights and listen:

 

Anything by Ed Sheeran.

 

Two things as a child. The first and most scary was Fire by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - utterly terrified of fire as a kid. Would lie awake at night worrying about it. This song and, in particular, his live appearances on the TV and the promo film which used to appear on video jukeboxes (have I imagined them, early 70s - sounds unlikely...) didn't help...

The other one which used to scare me was Breathe (reprise) from DSOTM - the line, "When I come home cold and tired, I like to warm my bones beside the fire." - No, not fire this time - bones. As a child, I thought that it meant literally taking his bones out and, well, warming them...

I was a strange kid...

 

Visage - "Fade to Grey" used to scare the crap out of me as a kid.
I still find it to be a very creepy sounding song.

 

Wow. I shared that exact experience. That song has such a forlorn, strange atmosphere.

 

Apparently Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop" was an influence on Bruce Springsteen for "State Trooper" on his record Nebraska. I don't think the music on Nebraska is frightening per se, but the entire subtext is. The characters in those songs are on the edge of despair and that provides the record with a dark undercurrent.