With Halloween upon us, it’s time to ask: What is the scariest song ever? I don’t mean jokey monster music like "Werewolves of London" or "Thriller," or sorta ominous but safely abstract metaphorical fare like "Season of the Witch" or "Sympathy for the Devil." No, I mean songs that actually scare you, like a good horror movie does. Top on my list is by Elvis Costello (pictured), of all people. His 1986 mini-epic "I Want You" is a terrifying depiction of an obsessive masochist confronting his cheating lover. As it builds to a climax, you don’t know if he’s going to kill her, kill himself, or both. At the end, the singer sounds spent, as if his will to live, or his very lifeblood, is spilling out. SInds shivers up my spine every time I hear it. (Fiona Apple has a faithful, thoroughly chilling live cover version, with Elvis backing her on guitar, that you can watch on YouTube.)
Other truly scary songs: Geto Boys’ "Mind Playing Tricks on Me," Genesis’ "Mama" (no, really!), Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ "I Put a Spell on You," Britney Spears’ "… Baby One More Time" (I swear, I can hear her soul choking and dying), and of course, Mussorgsky’s "Night on Bald Mountain." Which songs frighten you, PopWatchers?
Comments (1-30) of 200 Add your comment
“Every Breath You Take” by the Police. Stalkers are freaky.
House of the Raising Sun by The Animals
Joe Walsh’s “The Confessor” always creeped me out.
“Holocaust,” by Big Star, is scarily bleak (“Your mother’s dead, she said, ‘don’t be afraid.’” Your mother’s dead, you’re all alone, she’s in her bed.”).
Scariest song ever to me-DOA by Bloodrock from the early 70’s. It disturbs me to this day to hear it
I have two, both creeped me out as a kid. I remember listening to “I Shot The Sherrif” in the dark one night and was terrified! Same goes for “Tainted Love”, that song scared me for some reason.
“Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell really creeped me out as a kid growing up in the 80s. Video was chilling.
Peter Gabriel’s “Intruder” about somebody breaking into your house, and “snapshot” about an assassination of a politician (or so you think)
The scariest song ever is “Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down” by Ween. Hearing that child like voice say “Am I going to see God mommy, Am I going to die” is chilling.
the song that always sends chills up my spine is Tori Amos’ rendition of Eminim’s “97 Bonnie & Clyde”
I don’t know why, but when I was younger De La Soul’s “Me, Myself, and I” used to freak me out. A close second on the freak-out-meter was “My Mind’s Playing Tricks on Me” by the Geto Boys. “I sit alone in my four-cornered room staring at candles…” Yikes!
Eminem’s “Stan” a few years ago used to creep the hell out of me and still does.
“Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Creep-y!
“Helter Skelter” and “Sexy Sadie” by The Beatles creep me out by default. I can’t listen to them without picturing a wide-eyed maniacal Charles Manson.
@Susan: That was the album that caused Atlantic Record president Ahmet Ertegun to ask, with genuine concern, “Has Peter been *hospitalized*?”
@jennifer: Good call on “Red Right hand.” But for my money, “Do You Love Me?” from the same record is even scarier – an obsessive psycho song done up as a spaghetti-western death march. And then the sucker punch – the album closes with “Do You Love Me? Part II,” which reveals just how the narrator of the first song ended up so twisted and damaged. It’s terrifying *and* heartbreaking.
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah?
I think the scariest song to get regular radio play is Bloodrock’s “D.O.A.”
No songs actually scare me, but the king of this genre is Alcie Cooper. ‘Only Women Bleed’ ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’ ‘Eighteen’ these will work for Halloween!
Typo there! Alice Cooper is his name. Hope he doesn’t get mad at me, lol.
Alice Cooper’s “Cold Ethel” – we used to listen to it in the dark when i was little and get scared.
Even without the Exorcist visual reference, Mike Oldfield’s TUBULAR BELLS is creepy-freaky!
You may think that “Thriller” was jokey, but that laugh at the end terrified me as a kid. Even today, I get a little creeped out when I hear it.
“Every Breath You Take” by the Police never fails to give me the shivers. (Maybe it’s because I always understood how creepy the lyrics are.)
“They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!” by Napoleon XIV is totally creepy–the screechy voice that goes more and more insane until he’s taken away to the “funny farm” at the end. And Eminiem’s “Stan” when his #1 fan goes completely mad and kills his family and himself–the realization at the end is chilling.
I definitely second “Night on Bald Mountain”. I love it, but it is spooky. Another song that scares me is Rdiohead’s “We Suck Young Blood”. The lyrics are creepy and the music is melancholy and haunting- it’s a great song, but I wouldn’t listen to it during, say, a thunderstorm, or on Halloween…or alone at night…
Metallica’s “One” always kind of creeped me out. It’s about a man stepping on a landmine and being completely mutilated (arms and legs gone, unable to speak or see or hear) but still alive and screaming for help, death, or both in his head.
Closer – Nine Inch Nails
obviously made much more scary by the insane video though
Pretty much anything from The Cure’s album, “Pornography,” especially the title track with the muffled, backwards talking. Also, Kate Bush’s “Waking the Witch” from the album “Hounds of Love.”
Fantastic album! Kudos for mentioning it! The title track is creepy as hell, yeah! I also love the beginning of 100 Years, “Doesn’t matter if we all die…”
“Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” has always freaked me out. Annie Lennox, Marilyn Manson…either one. I just don’t like it. *Shudder*
Okay- I know this is stupid, but the song Incense and Peppermints really creeps me out. The music and the guys voice sound like they belong in an insane funhouse.
The only song that REALLY gives me the creeps is the theme song from the “Halloween” movies. Oh and once in a while “Time Is On My Side” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” freak me out when I remember them from movies such as “Fallen” and “Urban Legend”. Great, now I’m creeped out.