Best Song Ever: The Scariest Songs Ever

Radiohead – “We Suck Young Blood”
from Hail to the Thief (2003; Capitol)
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Consider this the general gestalt of Thom Yorke’s erudite weirdness. His fascination with, or irrational fear of (if you like your coffee black) the aging process dates as far back as “Bones” but “We Suck Young Blood” sounds as if it was made entirely inside a rotting pancreas. It starts with a creepy piano line and a bass that heaves a sigh as Yorke, tongue fully extended, blathers “are you sick?” He keeps on like he’s sick, sick, sick himself and a system of ghoulish, bone-in-the-throat vocalizations blow behind him like bats’ breath. Three minutes in comes a teetering, spastic, tin-panny slam of piano that puts a pocket-encased finger in your back and goes ‘where were you when the lights went out, silly.’ Picture malevolent miniature geriatrics inching under the doorsill, Mulholland Drive-like, then try not to cringe when grandma asks for your cheek. – Anthony Strain

Slayer – “Raining Blood”
from Reign in Blood (1986; Def American)
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Realistically, one could place Slayer’s entire catalog into the realm of frightening and dreadfully sadistic but for the sake of brevity, I shall choose the classic, often imitated but never duplicated thrash masterpiece, “Raining Blood.” Complete with requisite rumbling thunder and steady precipitation laden sounds, the song unfolds a story of hell on earth, demonic overtakings backed by blindingly lambasted guitar torture and flagellate drumming. An acronym for Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot, knowing that the satanic antics of Slayer were nothing more than stage fodder and synthetic mystique was hard to decipher in the early goings of the his hell bent bunch, and this ignorance naturally lent to the terror they instilled in the hearts of mothers and WHAM! fans nationwide. – Kevin Falahee

Joy Division – “Dead Souls”
from Still (1981; Factory)
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“Someone take these dreams away/ that point me to another day.” Tortured desperation, cathartic release, elegiac contemplation. Call it what you will, the words of the late Ian Curtis echo as powerfully now as they did over 25 years ago. Bathed in otherworldly revelations that seem to reach from beyond the grave, his stark lyricism alluded often to painful memory, real or imagined, recent or, in the case of “Dead Souls,” ancient. Stephen Morris charts a course through vast corridors of time with robotic precision and ever methodical drumming while Peter Hook’s throbbing skeletal bass launches Bernard Sumner’s pulsating guitar riff across that impossible distance. Acting as a conduit of sorts for troubled spirits, Curtis relives historical atrocities as if he himself bled alongside those lost: “Imperialistic house of prayer/ Conquistadors who took their share.” Curtis channeled psychic pain as no other artist ever had or will, haunted by memories somehow suspended through the ages and, as revealed by the final chilling coda, “They keep calling me/ keep on calling me,” which he simply could not escape. – Mars Simpson

Depeche Mode/ Rammstein – “Stripped”
from Black Celebration (1986; Mute)/For the Masses (1998; A&M)
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There was always a sense of danger and impending doom in Depeche Mode’s “Stripped,” but when Rammstein covered the track for For the Masses, the DM tribute album, this German tanz-metal band added a whole new dimension of monstrosity to this sexy yet dark track. Instead of ‘come with me into the trees’ acting as a seductive lure, it’s more of a demonic threat. I won’t even get started on the line, “Let me see you stripped down to the bone.” Singer (if he can be called that) Till Lindemann becomes more of a rapist / murderer in this scenario than lovers in a technological and industrial wasteland. Martin Gore has always had a dark side, but I don’t know if he ever envisioned anything this terrifying. – Terrance Terich

Cable – “She is Here”
from Gutter Queen (1999; Hydra Head)
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Though not well known in the near decade in which it’s existed, Gutter Queen is, to me, the last great stand of so-called “pig fuck” music. The entire album is a throat-reddening journey from one dysfunctional personal catastrophe to the next. “She is Here” is the final official song on the album. As opposed to the all-out aural assault of screeching vocals, Shellac-on-steroids guitar and violent Bukowskian lyrics, “She is Here” is a bleak but unsettlingly calm affair with plodding bass, gentle, but hardly cherubic guitar strumming and spoken vocals that are muffled over the more oppressive music. Listening to this whole album is tiring, and even in the end it’s not pretty. The song is like the oncoming numbness that follows a full-on breakdown, an ambiguous end to a long struggle or a feeling of being metaphorically-or even literally-crippled. – Chris Morgan

The Knife – “Silent Shout”
from Silent Shout (2006; Mute)
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A bass thrum heartbeat leads inevitably to a quickening of the pulse. Like a nightmarish vision of impenetrable darkness, yet irrevocably alluring, the chill of vocoder threatens to overwhelm the most wary of listeners. It’s elevator music for the ride down through all seven circles, courtesy of mask and cape wearing Swedes. Enchanting in a way that finds you awake in the middle of the night paralyzed by a cold sweat, “Silent Shout” operates in paradoxical flux, possessed of a magnetic supernaturalism. Both detached and dance-y, The Knife’s sinuous synthesizer extravaganza leads to manic paranoia as often as rapture, and the chance of attaining either makes the listen worthwhile. The distorted lyrics buzz like downed power lines flicking tongues of forked copper against the asphalt, all high-voltage schizophrenia. Try to discern the meaning of it all, or, better yet, let it lull you into a fitful unease, where pleasant dreams remain on some elusive horizon and ever out of reach. – Mars Simpson

Pere Ubu – “Sentimental Journey”
from The Modern Dance (1978; Blank)

Honestly, you can pretty much take your pick from anything in Pere Ubu’s discography and call it their scariest song, and you’d likely be close, primarily because David Thomas’ voice alone is awfully creepy, even in their most straightforward sounding punk songs. Funny, then, that their absolute most disturbing moment from debut The Modern Dance, “Sentimental Journey,” finds Thomas’ intense warbling at a startling minimum. It’s his unintelligible muttering and mumbling that makes this song even more unsettling. Even before he utters a word, however, glass bottles smash on the floor, white noise hums, a sickly saxophone wails like the merciless torture of a stray animal. But then Thomas begins his low murmurs, which are met with more broken glass, more squealing saxophone, a little guitar, and a bassline that creeps along the outer edges, waiting to strike at the right moment.

…then all hell breaks loose. – Jeff Terich

Celebration – “Good Ship”
from Celebration (2005; 4AD)
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The wind-howl of banshee guitars, the creak and groan of piano keys caught in the violent squall, a chorus of lost souls, wailing against the onslaught of the tempest. A sea chantey that would make Poseidon himself shiver in his scaly skin, “Good Ship” conjures a doomed voyage like only Celebration can. Ever the illustrious siren, Katrina Ford lulls men to their final resting place on the ocean floor. Dave Bergander’s spray of typhoon-like percussion stirs the swirling waters a turbulent shade of electric blue as a militant march of cymbals cascades into the deep. For authenticity multi-instrumentalist Sean Antanaitis casts somber accordion drones against the burgeoning storm while Ford’s low bellow churns the waves frothy. A pervading sense of hopelessness is strung through the rigging as she laments the journey, “Then I shall veer into the tide/ soul free and death with pride.” Being shipwrecked never sounded so sweet. – Mars Simpson

The Cure – “Subway Song”
from Three Imaginary Boys (1979; Fiction)
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Alfred Hitchcock knew that there was no more frightening thing than what could be imagined by the human brain. That’s why with Hitchcock, fear was built in the anticipation, never the boogeyman that jumps out of the closet. Early on in The Cure’s career, they knew it as well. “Subway Song” was included on Three Imaginary Boys, the band’s UK debut. The song is a narration of a woman coming home late night from the subway. It’s only eight lines long, but the fear comes with the fading bassline and the anticipation of what is to come. The first time I heard this song, I wasn’t expecting the ear-piercing scream and, when it came, it made me jump out my skin. “Subway Song” is not recommended for late night listening on headphones. – Terrance Terich

Hammerhead – “American Rampage”
from Ethereal Killer (1993; Amphetamine Reptile)

For reasons that are both fairly obvious and fairly esoteric, the foreign music world can’t help but be attracted to the grittiest, most grotesque aesthetics of American rock. The best kind of band from the States is one that’s primal, unrefined, acne-scarred and not a complete hindrance to one’s refined taste. For a time, Amphetamine Reptile records was more than stoked to provide such sonic delicacy, of which there were many flavors. Hammerhead isn’t exactly an exalted noise rock band compared to Unsane, and though they were just as loud, the back-alley urban waste of Unsane appeared comforting compared to the repressed Midwestern rage of Hammerhead’s debut Ethereal Killer. “American Rampage” opens up the peculiar album with inverted indie guitar melodies that are further corrupted into hollow wails as opposed to the sawed-off shotgun blast brutality of Unsane’s riffs. Paul “Interloper” Sanders’ vocals are fierce but also like that of someone whose anger is unfocused and misdirected, it starts with a psychotic war-cry and whines and hollers hoarsely throughout, all the while singing lyrics that conjure up imagery not unlike Ted Bundy’s bloody roadtrips and various other sociopathic fantasy land. – Chris Morgan

Slint – “Nosferatu Man“/ “Good Morning, Captain”
from Spiderland (1991; Touch and Go)
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The legends surrounding Louisville, Kentucky’s Slint and their second album Spiderland lend their already eerie songs a sense of mystique, making for great rock ‘n’ roll mythology and even icier chills down one’s spine. Supposedly, the process of creating the album led to mental breakdowns and subsequent institutionalization of one or more of its members. Whether or not this is true has never been confirmed, and it likely isn’t, yet Spiderland still yields some of the most haunting and haunted sounds of the last few decades. “Nosferatu Man” and its vampiric imagery, coupled with insistent, shrieking guitars crashes like lightning atop a Transylvanian castle, while “Good Morning, Captain” builds to an even more chilling climax. Inspired by “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the song finds Brian McMahan retelling the tale of the sea’s spirits taking revenge upon the lone sailor (“I’m the only one left, the storm took them all…“), and at a brief interlude McMahan’s reverbed voice lets out a whisper, “I miss you,” only to be repeated as a startling, blood curdling scream of madness and desperation. – Jeff Terich

Nurse With Wound – “Homotopy to Marie”
from Homotopy To Marie (1982; United Dairies)
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To call this thirteen-minute percussion and found sound composition a ‘song’ is a bit misleading. There’s very little in the way of melody, merely clanging cymbals, open space and suspense, and the sound of a young British girl met with her mother’s sneer, “Don’t be naïve, darling.” It’s more or less an audio tour of a mental hospital, flickering lights and dark corners, odd sounds coming erratically from every direction. That young British girl soon becomes more disturbing than the woman she appears to be talking to, as she mentions “there was a funny smell” and something about people who “want to know what your guts look like.” Try getting a good night’s sleep after hearing this. I dare ya… – Jeff Terich

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