Spooky Songs

[Des]

Apart from Long Black Veil and Ghost Riders in the Sky, this one sent shivers up me spine when I were a nipper:

When the mist's a rising
And the rain is falling
And the wind is blowing cold across the moor
I hear the voice of my darling
The girl I loved and lost a year ago

(Johnny remember me)

Well it's hard to believe I know
But I hear her singing in the sighing of the wind
Blowin' in the tree tops way above me

(Johnny remember me)

Yes I'll always remember
Till the day I die
I'll hear her cry
Johnny remember me

Well some day I guess
I'll find myself another little girl
To take the place of my true love
But as long as I live I know
I'll hear her singing in the sighing of the wind
Blowin' in the tree tops way above me

(Johnny remember me)

Yes I'll always remember
Till the day I die
I'll hear her cry
Johnny remember me


Then there's Ghost Riders in the Sky

[Adam Blake]

Yeah, that Joe Meek production is pretty damned effective, isn't it? It scared me too when it used to come on Junior Choice when I was a kid.

The one that scared the living daylights out of me when I first heard it aged about 16 was "Lady Godiva's Operation" by the Velvet Underground. It made my stomach go funny. Very rare to actually have a physical response like that.

Similarly, Nico's version of "The End" from the "June 1st 1974" live album is pretty terrifying (makes Jim Morrison sound like Bing Crosby).

Leonard Cohen's "Queen Victoria" from "Live Songs" is bone-chilling stuff.

The scariest music I've ever heard was by Georgi Ligeti - the piece that was used in "2001: A Space Odyssey". That gave me nightmares for weeks!

The scariest rock record I ever heard was Spooky Tooth and Pieere Henri's "Ceremony" - a version of the Catholic mass made in 1969 which has to be heard to be believed...

[Gordon Moore]

I don't think I've ever been scared by music?!, perhaps when the Wombles played, but I don't think you mean that.

I am now quite intrigued.

[Dayna]

The Beatles, Michele My Belle isn't really scary but has kind of haunted sound

[Adam Blake]

I don't think McCartney had that in mind!

Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath (who are supposed to be scarey but aren't) allegedly had the idea sometime in early '69. Sabbath were just another Brit-blooze band called Earth (good name) when one day he observed a queue of people standing outside a cinema in the rain waiting to see a new horror movie. "If people will pay to see scarey films", he thought, "they'll pay to hear scarey music."

[Des]

Kate Bush's Get Out of My House is terrifying.

[Des]

Quite a bit of Trout Mask Replica kinda scares me but makes me laugh as well.

[Dayna]

I don't understand what you mean by it's not what he had in mind. I don't know really. It just sounds like it is.

[Tonie]

Nick Cave's Murder Ballads album. If that's not scary, nothing is! Also I was dead scared as a kid by Kim Larsen's "midt om natten" - "in the middle of the night" (for the rare non Danish speaker). It's about a suicide. Or so I thought, I just found it on Youtube and it appears to be about a gang of druggies in the free city of Christiania (an anarchist part of Copenhagen) and their fights with the police... Anyway, someone jumps from a window and dies. Very scary stuff (to me as a 10 year old), very scary guitar riff. Classic 80s song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAzJ1Jx8hKM

[Adam Blake]

Hi Dayna! What I meant was I think Paul McCartney intended "Michelle" to sound sexy, not scarey!

Des, yes, you're right - I forgot about "Get Out Of My House". It's scarey as hell. Our Kate never got closer to thrashing the demon's arse. P J Harvey covers similar ground in a much simpler way with "Sheena-Na-Gig" which is a hell of a tough record for a mere slip of a girl from Cornwall.

"Trout Mask" makes me leap around the room laughing. It always has done and I hope it always will.

Tonie, I'm sure lots of people would agree with you but unfortunately I saw Nick Cave live in 1980 with The Birthday Party and I've never been able to take anything he does seriously as a result. I daresay this is my loss.

Funny isn't it? Music that's SUPPOSED to be scarey - death metal, extreme punk etc - isn't scarey at all to me. Just boring, or mildly funny.

Oh yes, "Suffer Little Children" by The Smiths is scarey.

Getting away from the rock-pop universe, I once had to leave a venue because a bunch of didgeridoo players were scaring the shit out of me.
And there's an alap from a raga on an old Indian Classical lp I've got of Imrat Khan playing the surbahar that's absolutely bloody terrifying.

[Dayna]

OK Thanks. I did think of that after I put that question on here.

I can't handle any of that Satanic blood & guts stuff.

I liked Michael Jackson's Thriller a lot when it was out, with Vincent Price in it. You know, that year he did so much that was great, before he got weird.

[Adam Blake]

Poor old Michael Jackson. Now there's a great American tragedy, for you. Perhaps the subject of a different thread? The decline and fall of a great American artist.

[Dayna]

I feel kind of bad for Michael Jackson too.

A song on the World 2002 CD by the band from Greece, Kristi Stassinopoulou---Into The Fire
I don't know what it's about, but it gives me chills. I like it though.

[Dominic]

P J Harvey [...] a mere slip of a girl from Cornwall.

Confusing Dorset with Cornwall is as bad as confusing Ireland (or Wales or Scotland) with England!

By the way I think the Laxula cover that various men have found scary my be a Sheela-na-gig:


Sheela-na-gig


Laxula

[Des]

They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha Ha by Napoleon 14th used to frighten me when it came out in around 1967. Mind you I was about 14 so I must have been a very sensitive child.