Thursday, May 27, 2010

Haunting Songs

I’ve had this idea for a blog post for several years. Yes, years. The point of this post is to identify songs with haunting or eerie beginnings. I'm not refering to songs like The Monster Mash, just songs that have menacing or gloomy starts. I’m not sure that I’m explaining this well (which is part of the reason why I haven’t actually published this post until now), so I’ll go straight to examples:

Nirvana – Come As You Are
Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter
The Animals – House of the Rising Sun
Ben Folds Five - Brick (Although this song has more of a sad beginning rather than an ominous start like the others.)

Do you have other songs that may fall into this category? Does this make any sense? Does anyone know how I can include the first 10 seconds of these songs into this post for those who may be unfamiliar with these tunes?

10 comments:

Nichole Fisher said...

My Immortal - Evanescence

Brendon said...

Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand was the first song that popped into my head listening to Gimme Shelter's intro. The Beatles - I Want You (She's so heavy) is what came to mind while listening to House of the Rising Sun.


I don't know about how to include songs in a post, but I was able to find all these songs on grooveshark.com (The Beatles was tough, but it's there).

Captain Easychord said...

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand
RJD2 - The Horror

(incidentally, these two artists - and in RJD2's case, this particular song - were featured back-to-back weeks last october on free music sunday)

Michael Jackson - Thriller (which I presume that you know)
pretty much anything from Air's soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides
pretty much anything by Explosions in the Sky

... and that's just stuff I pulled from my halloween playlist...

Ngewo said...

Achilles Last Stand...nice choice.

Paint it Black by the Stones (oddly enough, Sympathy for the Devil has such a fun, upbeat start)

A Perfect Circle-The Nurse Who Loved Me (but really anything from the Thirteenth Step album)

Brendon said...

@ Ngewo
Now that you mention A Perfect Circle, I think Passive would fall under this category in addition to anything on 13th Step. Also, if you like The Nurse Who Loved Me I'd highly recommend Failure - Fantastic Planet. It's the cd Nurse came from and one of the best cd's I've ever bought.

Brendon said...

I can keep going with this

Led Zeppelin - No Quarter
Queens of the Stone Age - I Think I Lost My Headache
Ozzy - Diary of a Madman

Sean said...

Thanks Nichole, Hand of Godard, Captain & Ngewo for adding your suggestions! I hadn't heard of some of these songs, so I'm looking forward to listening to them.

Amy said...

There is a really scary sounding beginning of an Alanis Morissette song but I don't know what it is called. It's really creepy piano.

Sean said...

Amy - I think it might be Uninvited. If that's the song we're thinking of, it is a creepy beginning.

Amy said...

I think that's it. Totally creeps me out!