SwR Presents: A Halloween Playlist by Paul Tremblay
music
Welcome to SwR’s music section. From time to time, we post playlists of what we’re listening to, compiled by the editors, our favorite writers, or guest DJs. In this special Halloween edition, author Paul Tremblay shares a playlist of horror-themed songs.
This is a playlist filled with songs that will leave you feeling uncomfortable, unsettled, unmoored. There will be dissonant chords that shouldn’t be possible; sounds and frequencies from a liminal space, from between the cracks of things. Songs with odd lyrics, turns of phrase within off-kilter melodies that make you laugh nervously while wondering if anyone else heard what you heard. Songs to which you have a visceral response. Songs that shock and songs that might be schlock. Songs that transgress. Songs that show us a glimpse of the ineffable. Songs that—if you allow yourself to listen closely—reveal a terrible truth about the universe, about society, or about yourself. You’ll never be the same after hearing it, and, almost inexplicably, you’ll want to listen again.
*cue organ music in D minor*
Disclaimer: I’m an old punk fan (mainly 80s and 90s) but I try to branch out. A little.
—PT
—Lustmord, “Heretic Part 1”
An instrumental tone setter. This song could be the soundtrack to a Lynchian nightmare. The forlorn, two-note horn blast repeats its warning, heralding the end of something, perhaps everything. Beneath the horn are an ambient drone and what sounds like animal growls. Fun fact: I occasionally play this song when I give back corrected tests to my math students. It’s not anxiety inducing at all.
—Metz, “Rats”
A dissonant blast, as unambiguous as the dark after waking from a nightmare. Plus, well, rats. “You’re in deep. It’s too late. You can’t sleep. You got rats.”
—Shellac, “The End of Radio” and Saul Williams, “Telegram.”
Two apocalyptic dirges. Like “Heretic Part 1,” they make the most out of spare, repeated notes. The end is coming. The end is already here.
—Protomartyr, “Windsor Hum”
The opening guitar lick echoes as though coming from a distance, but one you are not able to echolocate, just like the real-life, dread-inducing Windsor Hum. “The sound that you’re hearing across the river. Saying, ‘everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s fine.’”
—Firewater, “Dark Days Indeed”
With this song we get a little more playful, almost joyous in the shared recognition of the horrific truth. “I said, ‘So long Jack, we hardly knew you. Here’s to hell, and hallelujah. Take this rock and shake it till it bleeds, ’cause these are dark days indeed.’”
—Daughters, “Satan in the Wait”
I could’ve chosen anything from the Daughters’ terrifying record You Won’t Get What You Want. The simple beat and drone are interrupted by a siren-like wail, and then comes the strange intrusion of a harp-like sound, presaging an apotheosis and/or the fall. “He can live without air for several days, he says. He says he knows things, this man, he says. He says he wouldn’t wait for the light or the dark to fade.”
—Tomahawk, “Sweet Smell of Success”
The vocal chameleon Mike Patton croons through this unsettling song like he’s the Crypt Keeper. “Playing dominoes with tombstones. Found a graveyard in your drawer. Go and get yourself buried ’cause you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead.”
—Hüsker Dü, “Chartered Trips”
This is the best song from the Husker’s genius and expansive double album, Zen Arcade. Bob’s plaintive, emotive pop vocals strain through the desperate last lyric. “Said there’s no returning from chartered trips away.”
—I Speak Machine, “Zombie 1985”
Electronic experimentation and 80s synths. Music you can run-away-from-Romero-zombies to.
—Girls Against Boys, “Disco 666”
Cue the organ (not D minor), the sensuous bass, a guitar drone, and then the lyrics delivered with a snarl and a smirk. “Maybe I’m obsessive. Maybe I’m addictive. The number of your kicks is strictly 666.”
—Sir Chloe, “Animal”
Following up Girls Against Boys with another dark and alluring song about loss of control. If the movie Cat People were to be made a third time (the iconic Val Lewton and Paul Schrader having directed the first two iterations), this would need to be its theme song. “Make me behave like an animal. I’m asking nicely, give me what I want. I’ll ask politely, give me what I want. Make me behave like an animal.”
—High on Fire, “Brother in the Wind”
With the muscular tuned-down-to-C riffage, it doesn’t get much heavier. Yet this, High on Fire’s most tuneful song, elicits the strongest emotions and evokes the dread and awe of cosmic horror. “Where have I wandered, my father, led like lamb to my slaughter? Truth has awakened the dreamer. Hand I the keys to the keeper. Our brother’s wind blows on and on . . .”
—Uncle Acid + the Deadbeats, “Melody Lane”
Psychedelic stoner rock from a Jack the Ripper concept album. Melodic enough to lull you into thinking everything is okay when it isn’t.
—Ministry, “Stigmata”
The scariest band I’ve ever seen live. Al Jourgenson’s bone-and-skull-covered mic stand (which is a bit shlocky) wasn’t scary. But he still was. And the Ministry crowds were the equal of Al’s swaggering menace. I’ve seen them twice, and both times I was worried about my personal safety. Those mosh pits were rough with a capital –ough. And, yeah, Ministry’s music was confrontational and scary too. “Stronger than reason, stronger than lies, the only truth I know is the look in your eyes.”
—Swans, “The Seer”
We end with a thirty-two-minute opus that’s dizzying, discordant, and disorienting. Underneath the chaos, though, you begin to find patterns, form, and reason, but it all still feels wrong, as though you’ve discovered a truth that was not meant to be discovered. And the toneless mantra “I see it all, I see it all, I see it all” expresses existential horror.
Video Playlist Bonus:
You can’t have Halloween without some visual thrills and scares. From the fan-made Neighborhood Brats banger to the genius of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ pop star werewolf (which by the end of the video, is terrifying), each of the following songs boasts a video guaranteed to shock and give you shivers.
—Neighborhood Brats, “We Own the Night”
—Protomartyr, “Come and See”
—Pissed Jeans, “Bathroom Laughter”
—Lana Del Rey, “Season of the Witch”
—Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Heads Will Roll”
Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland, and most recently the short story collection Growing Things and Other Stories. He is currently a member of the board of directors of the Shirley Jackson Awards, and his essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family.
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