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The Most Frightening Or Unnerving Song

Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday is very starkly recorded and completely different to the rest of her output. The subject matter is horrible and for a good reason. I still love it though even though it creeps me out every time I hear it.

Slovenian band Laibach once did a soundtrack for a theatre's production of MacBeth. I bought it thinking it would be full of jolly japes and subversive pop and instead it was terrifying. I don't think I ever got to the end. Also the cover was so frightening I had to turn it against the wall.
 
staticgirl said:
Slovenian band Laibach once did a soundtrack for a theatre's production of MacBeth. I bought it thinking it would be full of jolly japes and subversive pop
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Had you heard Laibach before this?
 
I'm vaguely surprised that I've not mentioned this before (I actually was fairly sure I had done, but apparently not), but David Bowie's Outside album has its moments. There are some tunes that I very much like on it, and some that just make my skin crawl. The album's plot is fairly nasty, and some of the songs really turn it to 11.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_(David_Bowie_album)

I still have a huge soft spot for 'The Heart's Filthy Lesson', a version of which was played on the closing credits of Seven, fact fans. Being a big fan of Seven, that's how I discovered the album.
 
Mad World sung by Tears For Fears and used in Donnie Darko. It always has a sad haunting effect when I listen to it. Partly due to the Donnie Darko connection and partly b/c it's a haunting song altogether.
 
ravensocks said:
I'm vaguely surprised that I've not mentioned this before (I actually was fairly sure I had done, but apparently not), but David Bowie's Outside album has its moments. There are some tunes that I very much like on it, and some that just make my skin crawl. The album's plot is fairly nasty, and some of the songs really turn it to 11.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_(David_Bowie_album)

I still have a huge soft spot for 'The Heart's Filthy Lesson', a version of which was played on the closing credits of Seven, fact fans. Being a big fan of Seven, that's how I discovered the album.
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A hugely underrated album, and the Hearts Filthy Lesson is, in my opinion, one of the greatest things he recorded.
 
Whilst appreciating the exquisite sound/music I find the song "Riders On The Storm" by The Doors menacing. To me it has an air of tenseness to it at odds with the supposedly soothing sound of the rain. Plus of course the verse that begins "There's a killer on the road, his brain is squirming like a toad"


I don't normally get spooked by songs about love or relationships but this one did it - it has a refrain in a different tempo(?)

"Her remains were spread out like the pieces of a puzzle / it took her 365 days putting them together
the pieces were quite difficult to distinguish from each other / they were tiny and the clear blue sky went on forever"

She also has that vibrato quality to her voice that Buffy Sainte Marie has; For some reason this often has the 'hairs-on-the-back-of-my-neck' effect on me (in a good but also eerie way).

 
poozler said:
teddy bears' picnic

first time I heard it (just a kid) I found it absolutely creepy. still do.
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I know what you mean ,but it can't be as creepy as the record I avoid ,)and I only played it once ), Marilyn manson has made some pretty unsettling records to start with but his version of the Mash theme tune -Suicide Is Painless takes the creepy factor up three or four notches.It genuinely sounds like a funeral dirge
 
staticgirl said:
Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday is very starkly recorded and completely different to the rest of her output. The subject matter is horrible and for a good reason. I still love it though even though it creeps me out every time I hear it.

Slovenian band Laibach once did a soundtrack for a theatre's production of MacBeth. I bought it thinking it would be full of jolly japes and subversive pop and instead it was terrifying. I don't think I ever got to the end. Also the cover was so frightening I had to turn it against the wall.
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Very strange band; a curious mix of Finntroll, We Butter the Bread With Butter and Rammstein, with a hefty dash of (hopefully ironic) fascist chic thrown in and a lead singer who half sings, half belches and is a dead ringer for Vlad the Impaler!

Try this one:

 
AnonyJoolz said:
Whilst appreciating the exquisite sound/music I find the song "Riders On The Storm" by The Doors menacing. To me it has an air of tenseness to it at odds with the supposedly soothing sound of the rain.
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When I was about 17, I was listening to the Doors in my bedroom one afternoon when there was a sudden downpour outside despite the skies being bright and fairly clear. Riders on the Storm came on and the effect of the song playing with the noise of rain outside and the bright day was very powerful: creepy and unforgettable. It was like being in an IMAX cinema 20 years before they were invented.
 
Comfortably Numb said:
I find this frightening, unnerving and profoundly disturbing on every conceivable level...
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Agreed. The Wraith from Glen Michael's Cavalcade, crossed with the tartan boggle of the White Heather Club. These lyrics are horrible, when fully thought through. Like the Krankies, there are certain aspects of Caledonian cultural history that were of their time, and should really remain there.

A song that's always seriously haunted me since the 70s is Alice Cooper's "Dead Babies". I had this recorded on stretched/distorted reel-to-reel tape, which only added to its eerie unnerving effect
 
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Ermintruder said:
Like the Krankies, there are certain aspects of Caledonian cultural history that were of their time, and should really remain there.

[...]

A song that's always seriously haunted me since the 70s is Alice Cooper's "Dead Babies". I had this recorded on stretched/distorted reel-to-reel tape, which only added to its eerie unnerving effect
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The Krankies... haven't thought about them for a good few years...!

OK, let's agree to leave that aside for the moment... {yea, that was weird...},

Know that Alice Cooper song so well! Was, 'Secondary School' in Glasgow when the Album was released - it was the coolest thing around, especially that track!

You have reminded of a comparative video son and myself came across couple of years back - sent, 'shivers down the spine'...

'Da... seriously... is that for real...'.

Enjoy... :p

 
At work there are various buzzes and bleeps. One used to set me off humming a song. I couldn't place it and didn't know any words to it so it baffled me for a few years until I heard it on one of those charity shop CDs I keep buying. It's Joe Jackson's 'Stepping Out'.

Wish I didn't know that now as the song sounds creepy to me and I've always hated it!
 
A story I heard recently on Robert Plant's podcast: a few years ago he was seeing a woman who didn't know much of his music. He played her a few songs then put on Led Zeppelin's epic but very intense Achilles Last Stand before going into the kitchen to fetch something.

A few minutes later, his lady friend called him back into the room and, pointing at the speakers, said 'I don't want to be in a room alone with that (song playing)'.
 
Frideswide said:
I'll see your Krankies and raise you a Singing Kettle...
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I'll cover that and go all in with a Rikki Fulton.

Arguably kinda off topic re the discussion title... can't think where else to post...

Just that on the subject of being, 'creepy', was enjoying some, 'Francie and Josie' on YouTube there when I noticed the following.

Although long predating the Savile revlations to unfold, how poignant is this...

 
Kryptonite said:
A story I heard recently on Robert Plant's podcast: a few years ago he was seeing a woman who didn't know much of his music. He played her a few songs then put on Led Zeppelin's epic but very intense Achilles Last Stand before going into the kitchen to fetch something.

A few minutes later, his lady friend called him back into the room and, pointing at the speakers, said 'I don't want to be in a room alone with that (song playing)'.
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I don't think there's anything frightening about that track. Some amazing drum work, though.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
V with a hefty dash of (hopefully ironic) fascist chic thrown in and a lead singer who half sings, half belches and is a dead ringer for Vlad the Impaler!
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It was definitely ironic but they did like winding people up something chronic. The tabloids went mental when they played the UK in the late 80s. The humour is more obvious when they play live, I think. I accidentally happened upon a far-right music forum whilst trying to find out information about Laibach's excellent Spectre album. One of the members of the site was allegedly in one of the other industrial bands that could be found in Yugolslavia's healthy music scene of the early 80s. The other members of the site were a bit confused about the band's political sympathies but he said they were evil socialist running dog capitalist lackeys or something. He hated them, was probably jealous of their success. Anyway when someone like that wants to string someone up from a lampost I reckon that Laibach (their singer's) not a fascist...

Back on topic there is a song called Eurovision on the Spectre album which scares me but that is because they are forecasting the complete collapse of Europe. If there are going to be any experts on what happens when a union of different countries fall out it will be some former Yugoslavians.

Doesn't stop me wishing they'd be Slovenia's entry to Eurovision proper though.
 
Kryptonite said:
When I was about 17, I was listening to the Doors in my bedroom one afternoon when there was a sudden downpour outside despite the skies being bright and fairly clear. Riders on the Storm came on and the effect of the song playing with the noise of rain outside and the bright day was very powerful: creepy and unforgettable. It was like being in an IMAX cinema 20 years before they were invented.
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I had a similar experience, it was summer 1990 and the stupidly hot summer weather had just begun to break. I was in an upper room with glass on 3 sides and it was late night. Just as we listened to the start of the track, the storm broke....just candles and the sounds.
 
escargot said:
At work there are various buzzes and bleeps. One used to set me off humming a song. I couldn't place it and didn't know any words to it so it baffled me for a few years until I heard it on one of those charity shop CDs I keep buying. It's Joe Jackson's 'Stepping Out'.

Wish I didn't know that now as the song sounds creepy to me and I've always hated it!
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One of our cleaners dropped a bucket down the stairs the other day causing me to follow up by singing ‘We will, we will Rock you!’
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
Singing Kettle? They used to come to my school, I thought they were a local Warwickshire mob.
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Frideswide said:
good grief! it's international!!!!!!!
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They were mercilessly, indefatiguably, indisputedly Scottish. Well, Fifers: which is a very special kind of Scot.

@CarlosTheDJ.....what seemed to be the eternal question "Spout, handle, lid of metal, What's inside the Singing Kettle?" has now been answered: nothing. They are now off the boil, in retirement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singing_Kettle
 
Ermintruder said:
They were mercilessly, indefatiguably, indisputedly Scottish. Well, Fifers: which is a very special kind of Scot.

@CarlosTheDJ.....what seemed to be the eternal question "Spout, handle, lid of metal, What's inside the Singing Kettle?" has now been answered: nothing. They are now off the boil, in retirement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singing_Kettle
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Wow! I must have been there right at the start, in their primary school days. I had no idea.
 
There's a recording I have been trying to remember all day. As a youngster, found it the most depressing and unhappy song ever...

Eventually recalled this bizarre composition...

 
Ladies and gentlemen: I give you Small Was Fast by Pere Ubu - the band's journey into derangement via their brand of `avant garage`.

Their American label refused to release this in America - so only us Brits gort to hear it when it came out.

 
Gary Numan often tries to sound atmospherically eerie and sinister and so on, but generally fails to reach the mark - there is too much of an obvious pop sensibility behind his efforts. However in Pray - the intro to the great Sacrifice album - he almost gets there:

 
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