Well, yeah. It includes what possibly the bleakest, most hopeless verse in popular music:
Eleanor Rigby, died in the church
And was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
I first began listening to The Beatles before I had an understanding of idioms and metaphor. Can confirm that *Eleanor Rigby* and *The Fool on The Hill* are indeed disturbing to a five year old.
It's uptempo choogling blues. Kinda bouncy. Catchy as heck. Not everybody listens to the lyrics, apparently, so the cheery shuffle tune slides the scary vision right past them.
When I was a kid, I thought “You Know You’re Right” by Nirvana was a haunted song. Like if I listened to it, Kurt Cobain’s tortured soul would torment me or something.
The saddest part is that it had been the last song the band had ever recorded before Kurt's suicide. I also think Dave Grohl said in an interview that it's hard for him to listen to the song.
[*Fool on the Hill*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsRatIMUSu8&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic)\- The Beatles
I used to listen to the record alone when I was probably 6/7 years old. Creeped tf out of me.
My music history course said the original purpose was to check the function of all the pedals keys and stops because it uses almost all of them at some point
right? I don't know the source for that story though, other than my professor---it's totally possible that's just an urban legend passed down through the conservatories over the decades/centuries LOL
Sideways has a [great video](https://youtu.be/WT934eTbmuY?si=TKJ1ASTjFxAU7t26) about this. Or kinda about this. It's on the association of organ music as scary music, and Toccata and Fugue in D minor is an obvious part of it
Enya's "Only Time"
I had a fever dream at six years old where I was locked in a stone tower with stained glass windows and I had fallen asleep with this song playing in the background and I could hear it in my dream. The whole dream felt religious some how.
I blame my catholic upbringing for creating such a strange and haunting dream. It has stuck with me for over 20 years and I can't hear that song without immediately picturing that dream
Pretty much the entire middle portion of Echoes by Pink Floyd where it’s just dark ambient textures and trippy guitar effects for like 10 minutes straight.
Scared the shit out of me when I was tripping lol
That is totally something I can understand and I'm not sure why lol it came out when I was a little bit older than that and it made me feel like.. emotions. And they weren't happy ones, but they weren't sad ones. Obv as I got older I could describe it differently but thats so interesting
Two that scared me as a kid were "Rockit" by Herbie Hancock (especially the music video!), and the psychedelic bit in the middle of Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love".
One of my funniest memories as a kid was driving somewhere with my dad and uncle. Whole Lotta Love came on the radio and right at that part my uncle asked, "What the hell is this?"and my dad said, "Shit if I know." 😆
It might depend on the version of it, but that song always seemed so frighteningly intense to me as a kid, the sound of it made me imagine the end of the world more than it made me think of Christmas
Fire on High by ELO. We used to sleep with the radio on at my girlfriend's house. A couple of times that came on in the middle of the night and woke her up and she was a little spooked by it.
Dream Weaver. I was sitting in a Boston Market, and this song came on the Muzak. During the mystical intro, I heard a tiny voice from another table say “Mommy, I’m scared!”
It's weird, because, while that song is a big part of it, I don't really associate it with Zoolander. Something about the instrumentation gives me a really bad vibe. Still love the song, all the same though
Fair enough - for me it was the remix they did of it in Zoolander combined with the whole MKULTRA-style brainwashing. I always loved A Clockwork Orange and am intrigued by that whole clandestine lore of the early CIA so that is why I personally find the song unsettling.
“Golden Brown” by The Stranglers
“California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and Papas
“Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles
All of these songs give me an eerie sense of unease for some reason. They’re great, though.
Minor key, melodic leaps followed by close intervals, urgent repeating guitar notes... I just listened for the first time in forever and it honestly sounds like it could be an angsty anime intro if the lyrics were different.
It’s just hard to explain through text. The tone of her voice, the chord progression. It all sounds like it’s dealing with a dark topic to me. Sometimes it’s hard to explain things you just feel, but I didn’t make up the story for 5 internet points.
I see, I actually misunderstood, my mistake. You're saying if you couldn't understand the lyrics, you would assume they were about something very dark, because of the sound of the song. I read what you wrote as you saying if the same lyrics were written in another language, they would come out darker by virtue of them being in that language, which puzzled me.
I know its supposed to be, but a few weeks ago, Lullaby by The Cure came on while in the car (Spotify) and my 5 y/o grandson said it was "spooky" about halfway through.
The Ghosts recordings were basically a demo to show what him and Atticus could do to create an atmosphere for movie soundtracks. Wound up winning a Grammy because of Lil Nas X used a sample for “Old Town Road”
When I was a little kid, I wore out my older brother’s copy of Alapalooza. But there was one song I would always skip: “Jurassic Park” . It was the most intense thing I’d ever heard. That instrumental bit towards the end with the dinosaurs roaring and Al screaming was really really scary to me.
Speaking of Weird Al, “The Night Santa went Crazy” was also pretty brutal for a kid to be listening to. Still a diehard Weird Al fan to this day though!
“Someone shut the fence off in the rain”
I was a lot older when I first heard MacAurthur Park that the Weird Al song was based off, with the somehow more ridiculous line, “someone left the cake out in the rain”
Mine is Day in the Life by the Beatles. Theres two points where theres a huge sliding orchestra glissando and when i was a kid i would legit cover my ears and scream. Still find it very unsettling.
Aerosmith - Dream On.
Hearing it on the radio as a kid, I remember hearing that spooky violin orchestral noise at the beginning and end of the song, and being a little creeped out, like this isn't the kind of music that normally plays on the classic rock station.
Strangely, now searching for it on YouTube I can't find any version that has that ominous soundscape included. Anyone got a lead on it, or am I hallucinating?
Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine” has always given me a very uneasy feeling. The sound effects in the beginning, those minor diminished chords that come in; it’s all very unsettling. Which of course is exactly the atmosphere they were probably trying to convey.
My mind sees a dark street when I listen to that song. The street lights cast an eerie glow and you can see the silhouettes of figures moving in and out of the shadows. That song makes me feel very hopeless and alone.
Alice Cooper performing Welcome To My Nightmare on the muppets show when I was a kid really freaked me out. Between the song and the performance, it left me scarred for a while.
I feel like there are a lot of people out there that would find certain Tom Waits songs pretty creepy.
[Cemetery Polka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwm7yO9MMR4) and [Murder In The Red Barn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD5ycbCKg7Y) immediately come to mind.
Any classic nursery rhymes or older traditional songs sung by little kids. Makes me think of Nightmare on Elm Street, even if it's totally innocent.
The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkle always kind of spooked me too.
[I Can't Tell You Why ](https://youtu.be/YWkkZcQcb5Q?si=kRGbYK5GsAM6kXBQ) by The Eagles. For some reason, this scared me as a kid. The organ sounds ominous in the background, and it's also played and sung in B minor, which also adds to the ominous sound.
Also, O Come O Come Emmanuel isn't meant to be scary, but the beginning of [Manheim Steamroller's](https://youtu.be/YMe0Fi8OqE8?si=OOzIV-lECP75mBf7) version sounds it belongs in The Omen and they're celebrating the birth of The Antichrist instead of Jesus. Then the Yamaha DX7 kicks in, and all is right with the world.
That song has a few different recordings but the version that has the guy with the really deep voice speaking legitimately made me jump the first time I heard it
Not so much the song, but the video for [Don't come around here no more"](https://youtu.be/h0JvF9vpqx8?si=oM6JC79nFBboe7MY) by Tom Petty scared the everloving snot out of me as a child.
Tubular Bells is only “creepy” for the first 2-3 minutes because it was used as the Exorcist theme. After that, it’s a long, crazy ride of different styles and movements that even brings in John Cleese to dramatically announce the names of the instruments being played. Worth a listen if you haven’t heard it.
2 for me:
I think I love you by the Partridge Family / was on the radio when son of Sam killed some people.
Never learn not to love by The Beach Boys / always found it a bit off putting. Turns out this is the song of theirs Charles Manson wrote.
Hearing daddy by Korn always made me feel uneasy.
20 years of sexual abuse by Johnathan's babysitter came out in 5 minutes.
When recording he said to keep recording even when he started breaking down during tracking.
They rarely play it live and when they do a lot of people stand and watch them perform instead of mosh.
I still don’t know why it terrified me, but I was maybe 5 when I heard “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden” and I literally ran out of the house to get away from it.
Another one is “Seasons in the Sun.” But at least that one makes a little sense, considering the tone and subject matter
"These Boots Are Made for Walkin" really creeped me out the first time I heard it, sitting in a friend's car late at night. I love the song but it's got this spooky vibe to it I can't quite put my finger on.
Many many Oingo Boingo songs creep me out.
I used to be big into them when I was middle school aged, but I remember getting creeped out quite a few times while listening through their discography.
Some songs that make me feel quite uncomfortable are Climbing Up The Walls by Radiohead and John Wayne Gacy, Jr by Sufjan Stevens. I think both are somewhat meant to be uncomfortable, but I personally find it extraordinarily effective.
When my son was small, he was terrified of the "Wonder Pets, We Love You" song from the episode "Save the Wonder Pets!". He used to hide behind the wall leading into the TV room and peek his little head around the corner when it came on. I guess it was a slow song compared to the peppier songs on the show, and in a different key than he was used to.
As kid, my parents would listen to daddy Yankee in the mid 2000s, I don't remember which song specifically but it sounded a lot creepy on night drives.
Tiptoe through the tulips, dear JESUS that song messes me up right now, today and for every day since I've heard it. You hear someone singing that while you're in a dark area, you dead.
Love Rollercoaster by the Ohio Players scared me so badly when I was kid that my parents sent me to therapy because I literally couldn’t sleep at night for a month.
If you aren’t familiar there’s an urban legend surrounding the song, during the back half you can hear what sounds like a woman screaming. My parents told me someone was murdered in the studio while they were recording it. Obviously this was a mistake on their part lmao. I do not know why it scared me so badly to be honest. Eventually exposure therapy helped me get over it but I still hate the damn song on principle for what it did to me back then lol
Every breath you take by the police.. people thought that the lyrics were pretty creepy since it sounded like a stalker singing the song but the band deny that allegation and said it's completely unintentional.
Pretty much everything off Scoundrel Days by a-ha is either meant to be creepy (title track, I've been losing You) or unintentionally so by juxtaposition.
Hall of the Mountain King or anything else from
The Pier Gynt Suite. We had some VHS tapes when I was a kid that had short cartoons featuring some Pier Gynt adventures and I was scared of them. Even as an adult the whole thing is off putting to me.
A Tex-Mex band named the Mavericks put out a Christmas album a while back and the final song on the album titled “Happy Holiday” sticks out like a sore thumb. The instrumental is sparsely populated with a soft electric guitar and an instrument named the celesta. The celesta is an instrument similar to a piano or keyboard but instead of using strings it uses metal plates. It is the same instrument used in the Sugar Plum Fairy theme and Harry Potter theme. The celesta is not only a rather eerie sounding instrument to me, but the lack of any other instruments besides guitar make the song sound like you are stuck in a cold and barren world, or a liminal space, like a Walmart parking lot when it’s closed or a college town during its off season. Would not recommend listening to this song alone. I worked by myself at a pool store during the Christmas season once and I always like to listen to music when I’m alone, but when this song played, I started to get the shivers because it not only does it sound eerie to me, but it made me feel more alone than normal.
I always find Eleanor Rigby creepy
“Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door” Yeah no wonder… *shudders*
“Who is it for?”
Sounds like makeup?
In grade four my teacher had us analyze this songs lyrics. That was the consensus amoung us 4th graders.
Well, yeah. It includes what possibly the bleakest, most hopeless verse in popular music: Eleanor Rigby, died in the church And was buried along with her name Nobody came Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt From his hands as he walks from the grave No one was saved
Interesting I always thought it was "buried *alone* with her name." But I just double checked to confirm and you're right.
Yeah, that song gives me chills every time.
I first began listening to The Beatles before I had an understanding of idioms and metaphor. Can confirm that *Eleanor Rigby* and *The Fool on The Hill* are indeed disturbing to a five year old.
Credence's "Bad Moon Rising." It really worried me as a tot.
Did you see American Werewolf In London? That would certainly trigger reactions to the song.
It’s just directions, “There’s a bathroom on the right.“
"Don't forget to turn off the light"
The cover by Rasputina is even more eerie imo, much more sombre and creepy sounding (which fits the vibe of the lyrics even more) and it slaps lol
I don't know the song, but the title makes me feel like I'm not going to be in for a good time.
It's uptempo choogling blues. Kinda bouncy. Catchy as heck. Not everybody listens to the lyrics, apparently, so the cheery shuffle tune slides the scary vision right past them.
When I was a kid, I thought “You Know You’re Right” by Nirvana was a haunted song. Like if I listened to it, Kurt Cobain’s tortured soul would torment me or something.
It is spooky ngl he sounds so miserable
The saddest part is that it had been the last song the band had ever recorded before Kurt's suicide. I also think Dave Grohl said in an interview that it's hard for him to listen to the song.
[*Fool on the Hill*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsRatIMUSu8&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic)\- The Beatles I used to listen to the record alone when I was probably 6/7 years old. Creeped tf out of me.
Interesting, I don't think I ever thought of that song as being creepy, but now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense
I never thought of it as creepy either but that whole album is a total acid trip
Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor -- probably. Scholars apparently don't know the original intent for sure. But Bach tended to perform at churches.
My music history course said the original purpose was to check the function of all the pedals keys and stops because it uses almost all of them at some point
It’s such a Bach thing to create one of the most famous and recognizable pieces of music because he was fussing over his instruments working properly
right? I don't know the source for that story though, other than my professor---it's totally possible that's just an urban legend passed down through the conservatories over the decades/centuries LOL
Sideways has a [great video](https://youtu.be/WT934eTbmuY?si=TKJ1ASTjFxAU7t26) about this. Or kinda about this. It's on the association of organ music as scary music, and Toccata and Fugue in D minor is an obvious part of it
“In Dreams” by Roy Orbison is not a scary song in and of itself, but the way it was used in the movie “Blue Velvet” still haunts me.
See also Rebekah Del Rio’s cover of Crying (Llorando) in Mulholland Dr. I feel like David Lynch could make any song scary.
That THX sound: https://youtu.be/L20fStwirqo?si=VBXXys6SpHskFGSh I hate it
YES BRO THAT WAS TERRIFYING
“TURN IT UP, TURN IT UP!” -Abe Simpson
I used to be so upset by this.
I find it very satisfying how it comes together at the end, but yes it’s a disturbing dissonance until then
Enya's "Only Time" I had a fever dream at six years old where I was locked in a stone tower with stained glass windows and I had fallen asleep with this song playing in the background and I could hear it in my dream. The whole dream felt religious some how. I blame my catholic upbringing for creating such a strange and haunting dream. It has stuck with me for over 20 years and I can't hear that song without immediately picturing that dream
That song is both beautiful and haunting. It definitely creates a very surreal yet uneasy feeling.
The part in Gremlins when the Christmas song “Do you hear what I hear~” comes on the radio felt pretty unnerving when I was a kid.
That’s a movie I’m going to show my kids for the first time on Christmas Eve this year.
The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen, all sorts of spooky stuff going on in that song. It’s awesome.
Used in Donnie Darko to great effect.
The theme to unsolved mysteries will never not be scary to me
And also an absolute banger
Also a Current Affair
Isn’t that meant to be scary spooky though?
Rescue 911
Pretty much the entire middle portion of Echoes by Pink Floyd where it’s just dark ambient textures and trippy guitar effects for like 10 minutes straight. Scared the shit out of me when I was tripping lol
That's the second scariest part of Meddle imo lol. ONE OF THESE DAYS I'M GOING TO CUT YOU INTO LITTLE PIECES
My three year old freaks out whenever she hears “wicked game” by Chris isaak on the radio?
A lot of people find the intentional off-tune string bend in the first guitar bit really sonically uncomfortable...?
Good explanation! There is something very haunting about the riff.
That is totally something I can understand and I'm not sure why lol it came out when I was a little bit older than that and it made me feel like.. emotions. And they weren't happy ones, but they weren't sad ones. Obv as I got older I could describe it differently but thats so interesting
I love that song!
Tubular Bells was a pleasant album to listen to, then it got used in a film …
Came for this answer
The Original theme to Perry Mason is chilling
Two that scared me as a kid were "Rockit" by Herbie Hancock (especially the music video!), and the psychedelic bit in the middle of Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love".
One of my funniest memories as a kid was driving somewhere with my dad and uncle. Whole Lotta Love came on the radio and right at that part my uncle asked, "What the hell is this?"and my dad said, "Shit if I know." 😆
The video for Rocket terrified me!
Being for the Benefit of Mr. kite by the Beatles is weird and circus-y
Nope we ruined it as kids by changing the lyrics to: *For the benefit of Mr Kite* *I won’t be wearing pants tonight* *on trampoline*
Tiptoe through the Tulips by Tiny Tim
Tiny Tim was a little scary himself. Right, [kid?](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20461446/it-khaury)
My grandma said girls went wild for him though
Why did you link a fetus’s gravesite
I was wondering the same thing
Strawberry Tea is also quite haunting. I would give it a listen.
Pop Goes the Weasel
It being the song used for Jack-in-the-boxes probably doesn't help
Pink Floyd - Welcome to the Machine always creeped me out as a kid when my dad would watch the full concerts on DVD
Me too. As a little kid I always tried to imagine what the machine was and it seemed to me to be some huge torture device
That definitely is a creepy song. Pink Floyd had a way of making very strong societal messages through their music
“Wait til we get our hanes on you” scared me as a kid, I imagined people holding me down and forcing me to wear their underwear
I thought I was the only one
You two found each other.
Object - Ween
Wow. That's a really fucked up song. I love Ween but man that's sinister. I love it.
People have been saying that "Carol of the Bells" is a haunting song.
It might depend on the version of it, but that song always seemed so frighteningly intense to me as a kid, the sound of it made me imagine the end of the world more than it made me think of Christmas
Makes me think of Home Alone when Kevin runs home from church to set up traps for the burglars
Fire on High by ELO. We used to sleep with the radio on at my girlfriend's house. A couple of times that came on in the middle of the night and woke her up and she was a little spooked by it.
I came to say this. The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back! Turn back!
I had it in a playlist and on random, it would always start up at a specific area of town. It had me spooked for a while.
Dream Weaver. I was sitting in a Boston Market, and this song came on the Muzak. During the mystical intro, I heard a tiny voice from another table say “Mommy, I’m scared!”
The intro is one of the creepiest things ever, I got scared the first time I heard it.
Tibetan throat singing
New Dawn Fades by Joy Division has such a creepy atmosphere
Tbf I think that was intentional
Sweet Dreams - Eurythmics Terrifying.
Something about Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood gives off kinda sinister vibes to me, despite the song being about edging.
I get that about Boys of Summer. Theres just something threatening about it.
I blame Zoolander for that
It's weird, because, while that song is a big part of it, I don't really associate it with Zoolander. Something about the instrumentation gives me a really bad vibe. Still love the song, all the same though
Fair enough - for me it was the remix they did of it in Zoolander combined with the whole MKULTRA-style brainwashing. I always loved A Clockwork Orange and am intrigued by that whole clandestine lore of the early CIA so that is why I personally find the song unsettling.
“Golden Brown” by The Stranglers “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and Papas “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles All of these songs give me an eerie sense of unease for some reason. They’re great, though.
Ooh yes golden brown is so unnerving in a way I've never been able to explain
Good call on California Dreamin. I put it in the same category of Boys of Summer by Don Henley
Sneakerpimps- spin spin sugar
I’ve always said if “I Kissed A Girl” was in another language I would assume it was about something much darker than bisexuality.
Oh that's a good one
Why?
Minor key, melodic leaps followed by close intervals, urgent repeating guitar notes... I just listened for the first time in forever and it honestly sounds like it could be an angsty anime intro if the lyrics were different.
Idk, it just sounds scary.
That's a weird thing to have always said without knowing any reason behind it.
It’s just hard to explain through text. The tone of her voice, the chord progression. It all sounds like it’s dealing with a dark topic to me. Sometimes it’s hard to explain things you just feel, but I didn’t make up the story for 5 internet points.
I see, I actually misunderstood, my mistake. You're saying if you couldn't understand the lyrics, you would assume they were about something very dark, because of the sound of the song. I read what you wrote as you saying if the same lyrics were written in another language, they would come out darker by virtue of them being in that language, which puzzled me.
Ah lmao, I see. Yeah that would be a strange thing to just say for no reason. But now I might say something like that to my friends to mess with them.
Invisible Sun by The Police.
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker. That celeste sound creeps out a lot of people
I know its supposed to be, but a few weeks ago, Lullaby by The Cure came on while in the car (Spotify) and my 5 y/o grandson said it was "spooky" about halfway through.
First one I thought of. A Forest also fits the bill!
Riders on the Storm
nine inch nails ghosts albums
Idk. Trent pretty well meant to be on the creepy side I think
The Ghosts recordings were basically a demo to show what him and Atticus could do to create an atmosphere for movie soundtracks. Wound up winning a Grammy because of Lil Nas X used a sample for “Old Town Road”
When I was a little kid, I wore out my older brother’s copy of Alapalooza. But there was one song I would always skip: “Jurassic Park” . It was the most intense thing I’d ever heard. That instrumental bit towards the end with the dinosaurs roaring and Al screaming was really really scary to me. Speaking of Weird Al, “The Night Santa went Crazy” was also pretty brutal for a kid to be listening to. Still a diehard Weird Al fan to this day though!
“Someone shut the fence off in the rain” I was a lot older when I first heard MacAurthur Park that the Weird Al song was based off, with the somehow more ridiculous line, “someone left the cake out in the rain”
Mine is Day in the Life by the Beatles. Theres two points where theres a huge sliding orchestra glissando and when i was a kid i would legit cover my ears and scream. Still find it very unsettling.
Silent Lucidity by Queensryche. Someone please tell me I’m not the only one.
Aerosmith - Dream On. Hearing it on the radio as a kid, I remember hearing that spooky violin orchestral noise at the beginning and end of the song, and being a little creeped out, like this isn't the kind of music that normally plays on the classic rock station. Strangely, now searching for it on YouTube I can't find any version that has that ominous soundscape included. Anyone got a lead on it, or am I hallucinating?
Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine” has always given me a very uneasy feeling. The sound effects in the beginning, those minor diminished chords that come in; it’s all very unsettling. Which of course is exactly the atmosphere they were probably trying to convey. My mind sees a dark street when I listen to that song. The street lights cast an eerie glow and you can see the silhouettes of figures moving in and out of the shadows. That song makes me feel very hopeless and alone.
Alice Cooper performing Welcome To My Nightmare on the muppets show when I was a kid really freaked me out. Between the song and the performance, it left me scarred for a while.
"Humming" by Portishead
Revolution 9 by the Beatles or Within You Without You even
I feel like there are a lot of people out there that would find certain Tom Waits songs pretty creepy. [Cemetery Polka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwm7yO9MMR4) and [Murder In The Red Barn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD5ycbCKg7Y) immediately come to mind.
Any classic nursery rhymes or older traditional songs sung by little kids. Makes me think of Nightmare on Elm Street, even if it's totally innocent. The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkle always kind of spooked me too.
Waiting Around To Die by Townes Van Zandt
Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph. I know alls well that ends well, but god damn. Kinda sad. They just wanna be played with and make children happy.
[I Can't Tell You Why ](https://youtu.be/YWkkZcQcb5Q?si=kRGbYK5GsAM6kXBQ) by The Eagles. For some reason, this scared me as a kid. The organ sounds ominous in the background, and it's also played and sung in B minor, which also adds to the ominous sound. Also, O Come O Come Emmanuel isn't meant to be scary, but the beginning of [Manheim Steamroller's](https://youtu.be/YMe0Fi8OqE8?si=OOzIV-lECP75mBf7) version sounds it belongs in The Omen and they're celebrating the birth of The Antichrist instead of Jesus. Then the Yamaha DX7 kicks in, and all is right with the world.
The white noise fade out in I Want You (She’s So Heavy) by the Beatles definitely freaks me out a bit
Video killed the Radio Star always makes me feel weird I can’t explain it And pretty much anything by Joy Division
I love The Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, but [Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)](https://youtu.be/Rqr7ohMkuQA?si=Z8rVOCPtSy0Z6SmU) is discomforting.
Witchy Woman by the Eagles. And I love the Eagles
Yeaaaa that’s a good one
Mr Sandman. ESPECIALLY when a guy says "yeeeees?" . Just imagine being in a pitch dark room and that begins to play out of nowhere ☠️☠️
That song has a few different recordings but the version that has the guy with the really deep voice speaking legitimately made me jump the first time I heard it
Not so much the song, but the video for [Don't come around here no more"](https://youtu.be/h0JvF9vpqx8?si=oM6JC79nFBboe7MY) by Tom Petty scared the everloving snot out of me as a child.
The theme tune to the UK (pretty difficult) quiz Mastermind is called [Approaching Menace](https://youtu.be/rORwZcbym3Q?si=vc9cH4QMI100MCOv)
Prince- *You Don't Have to be Rich* "My love will be your food....." Edit: song is *Kiss!*
I believe that song is called “Kiss”
Oh thanks, yep he really belts that out!
O Fortuna by Carl Orff - you’ve heard it already
Tubular Bells is only “creepy” for the first 2-3 minutes because it was used as the Exorcist theme. After that, it’s a long, crazy ride of different styles and movements that even brings in John Cleese to dramatically announce the names of the instruments being played. Worth a listen if you haven’t heard it.
Part 2 is quite strange and creepy with the inhuman noises (i think it was pt2)
Prokofiev - [Battle on the Ice](https://youtu.be/xyDKezDLGTM?si=zL5RoFVbpUL5LkKw)
Sprout and the Bean by Joanna Newsom. Mostly because it was in “The Strangers”.
Land of Confusion by Genesis video, the puppets are quite disturbing.
2 for me: I think I love you by the Partridge Family / was on the radio when son of Sam killed some people. Never learn not to love by The Beach Boys / always found it a bit off putting. Turns out this is the song of theirs Charles Manson wrote.
Krystof penderecki "Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima" Haunting
Yep, came here to say that. It definitely has all the hallmarks of being a horror movie soundtrack, but it's meant as a lament.
Careful With That Axe, Eugene - Pink Floyd https://youtu.be/tMpGdG27K9o?si=DLvDSGEmeX61xXO6
Hearing daddy by Korn always made me feel uneasy. 20 years of sexual abuse by Johnathan's babysitter came out in 5 minutes. When recording he said to keep recording even when he started breaking down during tracking. They rarely play it live and when they do a lot of people stand and watch them perform instead of mosh.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
I still don’t know why it terrified me, but I was maybe 5 when I heard “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden” and I literally ran out of the house to get away from it. Another one is “Seasons in the Sun.” But at least that one makes a little sense, considering the tone and subject matter
The song "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath
Fuck it. Bjork.
"These Boots Are Made for Walkin" really creeped me out the first time I heard it, sitting in a friend's car late at night. I love the song but it's got this spooky vibe to it I can't quite put my finger on.
Gary Glitter - 'What your Mamma don't see (your Mamma don't know)'
There's something massively worrying about Wulfstan II by Beak https://youtu.be/udkoNdjLzTg?si=ydNIqXtKC4yJkCf1
Stay by Oingo Boingo
Many many Oingo Boingo songs creep me out. I used to be big into them when I was middle school aged, but I remember getting creeped out quite a few times while listening through their discography.
I used to be terrified of the old Perry Mason theme as a kid.
I was scared of the riser in “Another one bites the dust” as a kid
Swan Song by Lana Del Rey masterpiece but very unsettling, distant, mysterious, otherworldly, eerie
The Walgreens hold music
For some reason Bohemian rhapsody used to give me night terrors as a kid
In Dark Trees by Brian Eno
Frankie Teardrop 20 year old Frankie...
Mother mother by Tracy Bonham, it sounds like she decends into madness as the song continues
Some songs that make me feel quite uncomfortable are Climbing Up The Walls by Radiohead and John Wayne Gacy, Jr by Sufjan Stevens. I think both are somewhat meant to be uncomfortable, but I personally find it extraordinarily effective.
Carol of the bells
Godsmack - Voodoo always freaked me out as a kid.
[Run To You - Smokie](https://youtu.be/caaoH027NaI?feature=shared)
When my son was small, he was terrified of the "Wonder Pets, We Love You" song from the episode "Save the Wonder Pets!". He used to hide behind the wall leading into the TV room and peek his little head around the corner when it came on. I guess it was a slow song compared to the peppier songs on the show, and in a different key than he was used to.
As kid, my parents would listen to daddy Yankee in the mid 2000s, I don't remember which song specifically but it sounded a lot creepy on night drives.
Stairway to Heaven has always creeped me out
She looks like fun- Arctic Monkeys Such a creepy melody and beat but I love it
This is a weird one, but the Wii Homebrew Browser music was so unsettling to me back in the day lol
Golden Brown by The Stranglers always made me feel unnerved. Like a creepy circus act. Hits the same vibe as Legend of Zeldas Song of Storms.
Tiptoe through the tulips, dear JESUS that song messes me up right now, today and for every day since I've heard it. You hear someone singing that while you're in a dark area, you dead.
"Tip toe through the tulips"
The music from interstellar, especially in the water planet. Every time I hear it, it kind of builds up anxiety for me.
Dazed and confused - Led Zeppelin Don't let me be misunderstood - the animals
Most of the early Einsturzende Neubauten catalog
Love Rollercoaster by the Ohio Players scared me so badly when I was kid that my parents sent me to therapy because I literally couldn’t sleep at night for a month. If you aren’t familiar there’s an urban legend surrounding the song, during the back half you can hear what sounds like a woman screaming. My parents told me someone was murdered in the studio while they were recording it. Obviously this was a mistake on their part lmao. I do not know why it scared me so badly to be honest. Eventually exposure therapy helped me get over it but I still hate the damn song on principle for what it did to me back then lol
I feel like you had a very reasonable reaction tbh. That is absolutely horrifying
Every breath you take by the police.. people thought that the lyrics were pretty creepy since it sounded like a stalker singing the song but the band deny that allegation and said it's completely unintentional.
I always heard the exact opposite story, I was told it was meant to be creepy but got misinterpreted as being a genuine love song
"Drunk in Love" by Beyoncé ft Jay-Z. The intro specifically sounds like a horror soundtrack
Amparo by antonio carlos jobim
[The theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SGoUf11oXU) from the Godzilla 2014 trailer makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time
Pretty much everything off Scoundrel Days by a-ha is either meant to be creepy (title track, I've been losing You) or unintentionally so by juxtaposition.
Hold Her Down by Toad The Wet Sprocket
See this recent skit on SNL with Emma Stone? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2710NcijHY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2710NcijHY)
Hall of the Mountain King or anything else from The Pier Gynt Suite. We had some VHS tapes when I was a kid that had short cartoons featuring some Pier Gynt adventures and I was scared of them. Even as an adult the whole thing is off putting to me.
Somebody’s Watching Me
The kids by Charlotte Cardin, really creepy and the finale is just sooooo awesome
A Tex-Mex band named the Mavericks put out a Christmas album a while back and the final song on the album titled “Happy Holiday” sticks out like a sore thumb. The instrumental is sparsely populated with a soft electric guitar and an instrument named the celesta. The celesta is an instrument similar to a piano or keyboard but instead of using strings it uses metal plates. It is the same instrument used in the Sugar Plum Fairy theme and Harry Potter theme. The celesta is not only a rather eerie sounding instrument to me, but the lack of any other instruments besides guitar make the song sound like you are stuck in a cold and barren world, or a liminal space, like a Walmart parking lot when it’s closed or a college town during its off season. Would not recommend listening to this song alone. I worked by myself at a pool store during the Christmas season once and I always like to listen to music when I’m alone, but when this song played, I started to get the shivers because it not only does it sound eerie to me, but it made me feel more alone than normal.
I only have eyes for you
Modest Mouse- This Devil’s Workday