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Fortean-Themed Albums, Songs & Music

Coil makes music that is heavily influenced by magical phenomena and mind-altering substances. If you can, by all means pick up a copy of "Horse Rotorvator".
 
rynner said:
The psychedelic music of the 60s probably carved out a new field of Forteana for itself.

Early Pink Floyd being a good example! The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn has got all that mad Syd Barrett stuff on like Astronomy Domine, Lucifer Sam, The Gnome and Scarecrow, and Saucerful Of Secrets has the title track, Let There Be More Light and Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, all mining UFO imagery to good effect.

Also Jimi Hendrix had tracks like Third Stone From The Sun (from Are You Experienced , and Up From The Skies, about an alien coming to Earth and not being impressed with what he sees, found on Axis: Bold As Love (the opening track, EXP, has some fairly amusing sped up dialogue about flying saucers, but is mainly an excuse for the great man to make an almighty feedback racket!) My fave from him is 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be), a side-long mini-rock-opera which, as far as I can tell, has the (then!) future human race, thoroughly pissed off with the damage caused to the planet by pollution etc, returning to the sea. Whether they all drown or become mermen I'm not sure!
 
Fortean Songs

Reading the interesting article in the recent FT about sonic weapons, I was reminded of the Kate Bush song "Experiment IV" which seemed to be based on the mysterious Dr Gavreau experiment. The video dramatised something like it, anyway.

So what other Fortean songs are there? I think the Hot Chocolate record "No Doubt About It" is about the band spotting a UFO one night.

Any others?
 
There are two relating to the Phantom Hitch-Hiker legend: i) 'Laurie' - a ballad from the 1960s, popularised by Dickie Lee (actually it's pretty bad). And there's the Country song 'Bringing Mary Home', by Waylon Jennings.
 
There was the report in FT a couple of years back, and mentioned on another thread, about the REM track "What's the Frequency Kenneth?", inspired by an attack on an American news anchorman by a guy suffering with schizophrenia. As he beat the newsman he demanded to be told "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", so that he could jam what he believed to be the transmission of voices into his head from the TV station.
I suppose Very Metal music covers 'Fortean' topics more so than any other genre, e.g., Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath" (the musical equivalent of a Hammer Horror), Slayer's "Postmortem" (the musical equivalent of a Clive Barker movie) and Ozzy Osbourne's "Mr. Crowley" - to but scratch the surface.
Apart from this, only "Camouflage" comes to mind - the chart topper from 1986...
 
There was that song by David Bowie, withe the lyric "major Tom to ground control" cant remember the title though.
 
P> Space Oddity

Hospitaller> I heard that What's the Frequency Kenneth was about Dallas' Ken Kercheval...

Oh - and...

Chupacabras by Super Furry Animals off I think Radiator - "Soy soy superbeing!"

Hometown Unicorn, also by SFA, off Fuzzy Logic - "Will you ever return me, just like Frankie Fontayne"

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft by the Carpenters

Starman, also by David Bowie

Name of the Father(is that the title, or is it the Reverend Black Grape?) by Black Grape - mentions Nazi gold and the Pope aiding and abetting - always a good topic for Fortean debate!
 
I have a Kate Bush music vid and it seems there are one or two Fortean subjects on it: Cloudbusting, The Dreaming.

What was the Dr Gavreau Experiment?

Carole
 
What about the Carpenters last single.I think it was called"Calling All Interplantery Beings"or something like that.Truly a bizzare little ditty.
 
Bowie has quite a few 'fortean' tunes to his credit.
In "Have you ever had a dream?" he sings about OOBEs - "I will fly around the world one night, on the magic wings of astral flight".
"The Supermen" is about an advanced prehistoric civilisation "where sad-eyed mermen tossed in slumbers, nightmare dreams no human mind could hold".
"Saviour Machine" tells a tale of global destruction by A.I.
"The Width of a Circle" is crammed full of esoterica.
"Station to station" has explicit references to the Kabbalah.
And those are just off the top of my head...
 
Sonic Attack..hawkwind/moorcock

Kate Bush is a follower of Gudijeff i understand...
 
...and of course, Kate Bush wrote a song called Strange Phenomena. Just check out these lyrics - (WARNING! Fairly high cheese factor) -

Soon it will be the phase of the moon
When people tune in
Every girl knows about the punctual blues
But who's to know the power
Behind our moves

A day of coincidence with the radio
And a word that won't go away
We know what they'r all going to say
"G" arrives, funny, had a feeling he was on his way

(Chorus)
We raise our hats to the strange phenomena
Soul birds of a feather flock together
We raise out hats to the hand a-moulding us
Sure 'nuf-he has the answer
He has the answer
Om mani padme hum.

You pick up a paper, you read a name
You go out, it turns up again and again
You bump into a friend you haven't seen
For a long time
Then into another you only thought about last night

You hear your sister calling for you
But you don't know where from
You know there's something wrong
But you don't want to believe in a premonition

(Chorus)

God, I love her... er, it!

She's ace, is Kate...

:p
 
Every Yorkshireman's favourite song "Ilkley Moor" has always struck me as a bit weird... it's about indirect cannibalism, ultimately (sort of).

the lyrics are here

it's in an approximation of Yorkshire dialect, though, but as half the posters on this site (me included) seem to be from God's Own there'll be no problem.:D

Ilkley Moor has a lot of fortean stuff linked to it... holy wells, rock throwing giants, prehistoric sites, standing stones, UFOs, Black Dogs, ghosts, great pubs...
 
August Verango.. no she loves me!..she just hasnt met me yet!

odd fact about our Katie.. Kick Inside was the first album i ever bought and at the time acording to publicity she was younger than me!...now shes older than me! is she liveing life in the fast lane?...
 
Anyone a Bob Dylan fan? What in the Blue Blazes is 'Jokerman' about???
 
Like his songs, can't stand hearing him singing them, tho!

Jethro Tull has a lot of songs with a pagan-ish theme (Ring out Solstice Bells, Jack in the Green, etc)

Carole
 
Fortean songs..

John Lennon: Nobody Told Me....with the lyrics, "There's UFO's over New York and I ain't at all surprised!".
And I think there are about thirty million heavy metal songs with Fortean related subjects and various '60s psychedelic songs specialising in UFOs. Oh, and The Beatles song FOOL ON THE HILL is about Paul's encounter with a man who vanished!
 
How about The Strawbs' 'The man who called himself Jesus', a true story apparently...

Beer turning into blood.
'Jesus' scaring little children.
 
"The Happening" by The Pixies is about a UFO landing on the strip in Las Vegas....

sureshot
 
On one of their last albums Talking Heads had a great song about a woman levitating...And She Was, I think it was called.
 
Steve Winwoods "Hole in My Shoe" always seemed really bizarre to me.

Made even more so by the cover of it done by Neil from the Young Ones.

This song has, for me, the most memorable line of any song. I was only young when Neil's version was released, but I can still remember the first time I heard:

I looked to the sky
Where an elephant's eye
Was looking at me
From a bubblegum tree

This is one definitely Fortean song.
 
Nick Cave - lots of scary-goodness, murders, ghosts, carnies (?) and such like:D

no UFOs though........(makes mental note to check lyrics at home, just in case)
 
Its there a Chris De Burgh one about UFOs that they always play in BHS at christmas? or am I mishearing the lyrics?
 
Do not read if easily offended

The gothic metal band Type O Negative have done some stuff that may be construed as Fortean. Song titles include "The Green Man", "Be my druidess" and others I forget. The most memorable is Wolf Moon on their October Rust album. The story behind the lyrics is *gross bit coming up* of two lovers, the male performs oral sex on the female during her period which leads them both to turn into werewolves.

I've found Portishead to be Fortean in their sound, if not in their lyrics. Kind of abstract I know, I guess that's a personal thing.
 
whyteowl said:
Its there a Chris De Burgh one about UFOs that they always play in BHS at christmas? or am I mishearing the lyrics?

Yes, I believe it's called 'A Spaceman Came Travelling'.
 
Cursed said:
Yes, I believe it's called 'A Spaceman Came Travelling'.
C'mon! What kind of record collections do you people have???:rolleyes:
You got the title right. It's about how the star of Bethlehem was a spacecraft and the 'angel' was an astronaut...my family have owned a copy since I was knee-high to an earthworm.
 
"All I Want For Christmas Is An Alien" by Fountains Of Wayne

sureshot
 
Almost anything by Clutch... see also 'Fortean Muzak' thread.

especially:

Texan Book Of The Dead
Escape From The Prison Planet
Spacegrass
Animal Farm

pretty much the whole 'Pure Rock Fury' album



And definitely the 'Bay City Rollers.' Oh, no, wait. I must have been thinking about something else...
 
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