Spooky Songs

[Martin_Edney]

Can anyone remember the scream at the end of The Cure's "Subway Song". I jumped across the room the first time I heard that (though I was only 12 at the time)!

[Adam Blake]

Ah, the music that scared us when we were kids is another story!
When I was 11 a friend of mine at school told me his big brother had a record that made the guitar sound like it was talking. Did I want to hear it? Definitely. It was "Voodoo Chile" by Jimi Hendrix and it scared the living daylights out of me. I've heard it maybe a thousand times since and, while it doesn't scare me anymore, it still makes me stop whatever I'm doing and pay attention.

[taiyo no otosan]

Townes Van Zandt's Kathleen is pretty spooky, I've always thought. Those creepy strings for one, and the fact that it seems to be about him going off to drown himself

'Waiting around to die' ain't exactly a bundle of laughs either.

[Dayna]

Santana---Black Magic Woman

[Adam Blake]

Hi Dayna, if you like that you should check out the original version by Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. It's beautiful.

[taiyo no otosan]

Got it! The spookiest recording ever has to be that Burundi whispered song on the Ocora release "Burundi: Musiques Traditionnelles". First time I heard it I was driving through snow-covered mountains in Northern Japan in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. Just the moon glistening off the icey road and that man growling and whispering on the stereo. It was incredibly powerful - if far, far removed from its original context.

Later I played it to some students and asked them where they imagined it was being played - exorcisms and dangerous underground yakuza bars were suggested!

[Adam Blake]

Yeah, you're right! That is absolutely bloody terrifying.