Songs Of Discomposure: Quietus Writers Pick Their Most Disturbing Pieces Of Music

List needs something by Throbbing Gristle, my pick would have been "Hamburger Lady".

Of the songs I know, I thought the oddest choice was the selected Magnetic Fields song. The accompanying text simply writes it down as disturbing for describing pain (of the emotional/romantic kind) in a relatable way. By that criterium a whole lot of songs would qualify as being disturbing, perhaps the Beatles 'For No One' more than anything.

I'd be thinking more of darker themed, sinister songs, though.

The song that first came to my mind was Tom Waits' 'What's he building?', along with its video.

Then there's Nick Cave: Song of Joy. Someone seeks shelter at an inn, tells about his family being murdered, nothing known about the killer except that he leaves John Milton quotes on the walls with the blood of his victims. The man ends his story with a Milton quote before asking for a room.

Ed Sheeran singing about what his bedsheets smell like

xxp came here to write-in hamburger lady

Peter Gabriel, Intruder. (and I'm a Butthole Surfers/Coil fan.)

Couple more I'd have included:

Autechre - Bine, which soundtracked the closest thing I've had to a night terror / panic attack
Jacques Brel - Les Bonbons, whose protagonist is an oleaginous creep, bringing his (ostensibly under-aged) paramour gifts of sweets, because they're 'so much nicer than flowers'

Klaus Nomi doing Cold Song on TV while already ill

John Cale, Fear

Jacques Brel - Les Bonbons, whose protagonist is an oleaginous creep, bringing his (ostensibly under-aged) paramour gifts of sweets, because they're 'so much nicer than flowers'

Oh, I'd never realized before what this song was about, he always seemed to be playing it for laughs. There's a David Ackles song about a cripple who owns a sweet shop who takes his revenge on the people who mock him by hiding pornography in their children's sweets, that's pretty creepy. Another particularly disturbing 'singer-songwriter' song is Randy Newman's "In Germany Before the War", you don't really want to think about what's going on in that song.

In Germany Before the War is p much a variant on M/Tenderness of Wolves

"patricia" by doc corbin dart too, probably.

Brel is definitely 'in character' during that song. As with most of his songs, it's down to interpretation, and the interpretation is my own but it makes sense to me.

Here's a translation I found online (it's not great, a little too literal):

I've brought you some sweets
Cause flowers are perishable
And sweets are so nice
Although flowers look more presentable
Especially when they're in bud
But I've brought you some sweets
I hope we can go for a walk
That your mother won't mind
We'll watch the trains go by
I'll bring you back at eight o'clock
What a nice Sunday it is for the season
I've brought you some sweets
If you knew how proud I am
To see you Hung on my arm
People look askance at me
Some of them even laugh behind my back
The world is full of naughties
I've brought you some sweets
Oh yes! Germaine's not as nice as you
Oh yes! Germaine's Less pretty
It's true that Germaine has auburn hair
It's true that Germaine is cruel
Oh, you're absolutely right
I've brought you some sweets
So here we are on the Grand' Place
They're playing Mozart at the kiosk
But tell me isn't that by any chance
That your friend Léon is over there
If you want me to step aside
I had brought you some sweets
Oh, good morning Miss Germaine
I've brought you some sweets
Cause flowers are perishable
And sweets are so nice
Although flowers look more presentable

I think NWW is a fair shout here, although more on a level that it plays games in a slightly queer fashion rather than being str8 up disturbing.

I haven't heard everything on the list but by far the most harrowing thing here is 'The Boiler' - like the blurb's writer I first heard it on a 2-Tone compilation, I must've been about 12? I was aware of the Specials as a band who wrote about real life in a kind of direct way but nothing prepared me for that. I've maybe heard it once or twice again since, that first listen really did stay with me. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title.

To be honest the only recordings I can think of that ever properly shat me up are The Conet Project, The Ghost Orchid and the epilogue from War of the Worlds and none of those can qualify as music.

I would've picked Scott Walker's "The Electrician" as genuinely disturbing.

Also, there's a Selector song about a woman getting raped...

Are you thinking of "The Boiler"? If so, it's on the list. It was on 2-Tone, but not by The Selecter.

Yeah, The Boiler is on this list. One of the few songs I have to be careful about playing (if I ever play it) in mixed company.

LBI - "parallelograms" is disturbing to me in that it's like a siren song to bring one into a void or a heavy bad trip. It's gorgeous though

maresnest otm, the conet project is genuinely unsettling

Obviously it's influenced by the revelations about his behavior but I find a lot John Phillips's "John the Wolf King of LA" disturbing - the unrelenting mellow tunefulness with occasional suggestions that something awful is going on (esp "Let it Bleed Genevieve"). It sounds like someone who's just so constantly fucked up that he's oblivious to the fact that he's become a sociopathic junkie.

Parallelograms has been kind to me on weed, Ross :)

Hearing 'Automatic Writing' by Robert Ashley on the radio when my guard was down was a very unsettling experience, but that wasn't recreated the second time I willfully put it on.

With things like Coil, Current 93 (the girl screaming DEAD on 'All the pretty horses' gave me a right scare) and NWW, you pretty much know what you are going to get though. The surprise disturbance appeals more to me, narrative wise. Where you least expect it. Or, in Scott Walker's case, unthinkably whack.

uh what radio station was that

I forgot about The Conet Project, I have that stuff on my computer which means I've got about 5 hours of number towers recordings that I barely listen to but don't want to get rid of either. The worst part is that people sample it fairly often, so that stuff could pop up in your music collection at any point. It took me a while but I eventually noticed a Conet Project sample on a Plus-Tech Squeezebox song of all things, which was a real oh shit moment.

Lol, deserved question. A Dutch classical station that had an experimental avant-garde show on Sunday night for two hours. I was driving a van moving to a new house when a student. I didn't know they had this show on Sunday night, thought it was all just classical. It was crazy. But lead to me listening to it religiously for years (it's now defunct).

xp

can't think of too many songs that freak me out to the point where I never want to listen to them but Ween's "Spinal Meningitis" is one, which is strange b/c I remember someone telling me that they thought that song was hilarious in how cruel it was

"Devil's Triangle" by King Crimson always used to do it though. it sounds like the mellotron is being butchered as it goes on. man were they able to coax some ugly sounds out of that thing.

Listening to 22 Going On 23 is a good way to get a taste of what being clinically depressed feels like if you've never experienced it

can't think of too many songs that freak me out to the point where I never want to listen to them but Ween's "Spinal Meningitis" is one, which is strange b/c I remember someone telling me that they thought that song was hilarious in how cruel it was

It was probably on ILM, I remember discussing that song before. I don't think that song is disturbing or hilarious or (wtf) cruel fwiw.

Slapp Happy - Freedom

(with that spine destroying scream)

possibly more cathartic than disturbing though

*art bears i mean

How many songs have proper jump scares? Like that horrible scream at the end of The Cure's Subway Song.

xxxp nah it was a friend of mine who is probably even more into Ween than I am. it's a polarizing tune but they play it every show so I guess their fans mostly like it.

How many songs have proper jump scares?

"Cautious Lip" by Blondie. Debbie's scream caught me unawares a few times.

am brainstorming this. will also listen to these choices and vote, eventually

Immortal Technique - Dance With The Devil
Foetus - Kreibabe (tt: "This isn't disturbing, this is just edgy crap!")
Murcof - Oort (you want jump scares? you want COSMIC jump scares?)
KTL - Theme
R.D. Laing - Eleven
Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Farewell
Portishead - Half Day Closing
The Cure - The Drowning Man
Giles Corey - The Haunting Presence

A couple from this year:

Jute Gyte - Oviri (the track)
Bedwetter aka Lil Ugly Mane - Haze Of Interference (his track Intent And Purulent Discharge as LUM from 2015 was also terrifying)

> How many songs have proper jump scares?

pale saints - colour of the sky
mercury rev - that early, long b-side of car wash hair.

How many songs have proper jump scares?

the Peel session version of Everybody Is Dead by Microdisney (which, unlike the album version, ends with Cathal Coughlan screaming "I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU") nearly gave me a heart attack the first time I heard to it (via ipod headphones, half asleep on a bus travelling to work at about 6.30 in the morning)

https://youtu.be/gnbbG4Pd-0U

that sudden jarring fanfare on Into the Night by Julee Cruise on the Twin Peaks soundtrack album made me jump a few times

there's a proper horrible jump scare at the end of The Cure's Subway Song.

I suppose I'm not easily disturbed. There is a style of music that is made up of high-pitched electronic sounds that is very painful for me to listen to. I believe a lot of the artists or musicians are from Japan. I tried Googling the genre to no avail.

I actually quite like The Tower Recordings and some mid-tone noise and ambient, I find it oddly relaxing. It's the extreme frequencies and pitches that I find very painful and, therefore, disturbing.

Also, sliding up and down octaves and pitches very fast and often is also slightly painful or disturbing to my ears (e.g., Penderecki, Stockhausen, etc.).

Good jump scare on the Swans 'Blind Love' off Children of God iirc

There's a weird Exorcist or something parody at the end of Brad's Shame which put the shits up me the first time I heard it, dropping off to sleep.

Is "the sound of space" the same user as "the tune is space" ie D.D.?

holy shit daredevil is an ilxor?

pj harvey "Taut"

"even the son of God had to die my darrrrrrlin"

"You Better Run" by Junior Kimbrough

Le Bateau Ivre, I don't know the user "the tune is space" or D.D.

So, unless he or she has magically possessed my body or keyboard without my knowledge, it's fairly safe to say I am not that user.

Pre- the escape, the cockfighter was the scott walker jump scare tune

Comparison of the former with the man behind winkies is a good one for a few reasons inc daftness and the capacity to unsettle even after multiple listens/watches when you know what's coming

don't get why 'the escape' over 'clara'

the donald duck voice surely

Just heard this one today, humoristic yet so so sickening and wrong

Alice Donut - Bucketfulls of Sickness and Horror in an Otherwise Meaningless Life (1989)

https://youtu.be/092DUlx2hX0

Sorry, song is called Lisa’s Father.

the escape song is weird because Donald Duck is saying something Bugs Bunny says, accompanied by wrangled slide FX that sound imported from Looney Tunes

― Week of Wonders (Ross), Friday, September 22, 2017 11:10 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been thinking about this recently. There's something eerie about, like, when I see fairground rides with cartoon characters that have been badly painted on the side of Mickey Mouse and also Tweetie Pie and Bart Simpson (etc) and they're all slightly off and clearly breaking copyright law. There's no reason this should disturb me but it's unheimlich. Same as those really cheap children's YouTube videos with badly-animated Spiderman interacting robotically with some other cartoon character...

I think the thing that disturbs me about poor-quality kid's entertainment is the sheer lack of concern for the target audience. Or rather the lack of concern for a target audience that can't be blamed for its lack of discernment, and also the tacit acknowledgement that children don't yet have a fully-developed consciousness - they soak up stimuli indiscriminately - which is disturbing in its own way because if you accept that consciousness results from the growth of the brain then it follows that we do not have immortal souls.

Of the songs in the list "Death Disco" is upsetting for the single cover, which is a drawing of little Johnny Lydon and his mum. It's grotesque but devastatingly sad. She lived a hard life and died painfully of cancer in 1978. "Frankie Teardrop" works because it's relentless, but I find it too melodramatic to be disturbing. "The Escape" is to date the only song that has ever made me jump - it's a perfectly-formed jump scare - but it's not disturbing on an emotional level. "Clara" from the same album is more affecting. I've never been able to take Throbbing Gristle seriously, they just come across as incredibly smug and self-satisfied. The same is true of Coil, Nurse With Wound, This Heat, all of the British dark noise bands. The members were all called Colin, Peter, Tony, or Charles. I can't be disturbed by a man called Charles.

Relatively-current internet sensation "Plastic Love" is smooth and upbeat but has surprisingly bleak lyrics, with roughly the same theme as "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend". Has any pop music disturbed me on a deep, spiritual level? Probably the genetic autotune hip-hop that plays in European supermarkets, because it spits in the face of the idea that pop music might be good. Also the Black Eyed Peas, because their songs sounded as if they were written by a team of seven writers specifically for a television dance routine.

Beautiful post (missed your posts here!)

I can't be disturbed by a man called Charles.

I can think of a fairly disturbing man called Charles who had an abortive music career...

I recently came across an early-career album from Brian Williams of Lustmord: Isolrubin BK Crash Injury Trauma and this is right up there with the most disturbing stuff I've ever heard and I'm never touching it again. If you've ever been in or near a car crash, you might want to avoid it altogether.

As long as this thread's gotten a timely revival: I'm planning to do a special Halloween episode of my local radio show, and though I've found a lot of good material by scouring this and every other ILX thread with "scary", "disturbing", "unsettling" etc. in the title, I'd really appreciate some direct responses (and just, in general, I'd enjoy adding to the canon of people talking about frightening music on here).

The theme is meant to be more "upsetting music" than broadly horror-themed (kind of like the original Quietus prompt), so while loud stuff is certainly fine - I'm planning to cap off the night with "Cue" by Scott Walker - it doesn't necessarily qualify just because it's black metal/power electronics/your edgy genre of choice. If it's placid and still manages to scare you that's a plus (eg, "This Is Not My Stomach" by Bedwetter is definitely getting played). And I'd rather not have to explain "this is about [horrific real-world event]" during my mic break to get the point across - so if it comes up in the lyrics that's fine, but it strikes me as somewhat insensitive to "goose" the scare factor of the music with an explanation of the subject matter if/when it isn't already apparent.
A considerable thanks in advance, and I'm already listening through Crash Injury Trauma to assess its viability.

I can think of a fairly disturbing man called Charles who had an abortive music career...

― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Thursday, 19 September 2019 22:36 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I listened to a Charles Manson prison album once (Way Of The Wolf).

Plenty of stuff on there that would count as 'most disturbing'.
Listened to it once years ago out of morbid curiosity but wouldn't go there again.

The members were all called Colin, Peter, Tony, or Charles. I can't be disturbed by a man called Charles.

― Ashley Pomeroy

Scott Baio disturbes me. I know his actual name isn't Charles. The Prince of Wales disturbs me.

I feel like any name has the potential to disturb me, particularly if it's a man's name.

I’m with AP on Throbbing Gristle - they always seemed like desperate try-hards to me.

Champiness, I'd renominate "Disturbance" by The Move. See what you think...

@Champiness: try Elend, anything off The Umbersun or The World In Their Screams - thick choral/orchestral nightmarish music.

Also Deutsch Nepal Horses Give Birth To Flies off Tolerance for that reverbed horse's neigh.

I've been thinking about this recently. There's something eerie about, like, when I see fairground rides with cartoon characters that have been badly painted on the side of Mickey Mouse and also Tweetie Pie and Bart Simpson (etc) and they're all slightly off and clearly breaking copyright law.

The primary school I went to had a wall in the main hall with a load of Disney characters painted on it, I remember in one assembly one of the younger children bursting into tears because the picture of Dumbo frightened them - I was puzzled by this at the time but as an adult I know exactly what you mean.

Ladytron's "Seventeen". The whole of the lyric is "they only want you when you're seventeen / when you're twenty-one, you're no fun / they take a Polaroid and let you go, say they'll let you know / so come on".

It was queasy back in 2002 and is still queasy given #metoo and Jeffrey Epstein etc. I learn from the Youtube comments that Kellogg's of Australia gave it away on a CD free with Coco Pops(!):
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Kelloggs-Coco-Pops/release/9061049

I can listen to dissonant/extreme stuff namechecked on this thread all day and all night, but the one song that will mess me up without fail is Richard & Linda Thompson's "Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed"

Is anybody else discomfited by the sound of Jon Hassell's trumpet on 'Shadow' from On Land? It's so odd, plus all the mouth sounds and breathing in-between, ugh