Top 5 Scariest Songs

Just in time for Halloween 2008 I have come up with a list of five songs that scare(d) the shit out of me. There are many reasons people get scared..floors creaking in an empty house(mine),a basement that is musty, old and poorly lit(mine), the wind whipping branches around causing the motion lights to go on at 3:15 in the morning(mine)..the amazing amount of people who watch Dancing With the Stars....voting machine malfunctions in the most technologically advanced country in the world.These are things that scare me....but this is a music blog for the most part...so on to the songs that freak me out.

#5) Mass Production- Iggy Pop(The Idiot,1977)-The intro to this song alone with its drawn out druggy keyboard intro..it pulls you into some burned out side room in a secret club somewhere in the mid seventies, where scenesters are strung out and strewn out all flophouse style..amidst the smoke and the coke. Iggy is your MC while people fall in and out of the frame..slurring expectations of himself in a painful howl as the soundtrack swirls off kilter behind him. Scary 8 minutes of dead end sin somewhere.

I don't think I'd last 3 minutes in that room with him.

#4)Am I Inside-Alice in Chains(Sap,1992)-The Sap EP was a precursor to their monumental album Dirt..which in its entirety can shake you to your core. But the bleakness that permeated singer Layne Staley's lyrics first came to light here. Am I Inside has an intro that framed what his life could be at times, and ultimately ended up as... A dank, dark chamber of drug fueled solitude. I was a victim of the grunge personification(without the drugs)and spent alot of time pleasantly freaked out by this song in a musty basement after my parents divorce.I get the shivers still, even when Ann Wilson kicks in with the background vocals. Booo....scary. Boo-hoo...sad.


#3)Revolution #9- The Beatles(White Album,1968)- This is the first song that ever scared the living daylights out of me. Even at 8 years old I knew something was not right with this song. The ominous MC spouting his "number nine" mantra throughout, The blips of backwards orchestration, the little Asian voice whispering something about being naked or Satan."Hold that line!" or "block that kick"..or whatever he says in a repeated bleat... I remember lifting the scratchy stylus over certain parts where I just couldn't get through..being fascinated with the fear it brought me. I still am..


#2)Black Sabbath-Black Sabbath(self titled debut, 1970)-This could very well be the most ominous song ever produced. I mean C'mon..Ozzy asks "What is this that stands before me,figure in black who points at me."!!!!!!! Look kids, Satan's standing in the doorway and he wants answers! This gives me demon-tipped goosebumps just thinking about it...and the power chords so loud and low that they engulf you in fear..as the clouds close in and you're stranded in a desolate field at dusk..with Beelzebub as your tourguide. And lets talk about that album cover for a minute...who is that gutted out ghost woman in a robe just staring at you? Her eyes follow you around the room like a husked out Mona Lisa....Ghouls Gold! Mommmyyyyy!


And the number one scariest song on my list....Wake Me Up Before You Go Go-Wham(1984)
Everything about George Michael scares me...overly bright teeth,femme lashes, the orange tint of his skin,his too perfect stubble, his penchant for entertaining in bathroom stalls and crashing cars while high...but this video with the neon, the flash of those Choose Life T-shirts, the flitty swaying,sashaying...that dude muttering "Jitterbug" for some strange reason.AHHHHHH! I was often scared right out of the room when this song or accompanying video came on..even during my brief dance club period in the mid 80s. Friends would often find me under a table muttering "make it stop!" until the neon died down and the vision of those teeth flashing in the dark subsided. Watch that video here if you dare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wsCZ7Ft_Z8

Have a Happy Halloween my rockofiles, wherever you are!