#18 Charlotte Martin - I Am Stretched On Your Grave

(Halloween playlist, #3)


Album: Reproductions (2007)

Lyrics excerpt:
I am stretched on your grave
And I'll lie here forever
With your hands in mine
I'd be sure we'd not sever

My apple tree, my brightness
It's time we were together
For I smell of the earth
And am worn by the weather

Reasons to love this song:
Although I have labelled all songs from my Halloweeen playlist as "halloween: creepy songs" for simplicity's sake, there is nothing creepy about this song. It's a passionate song about longing to be united in death with a dead lover, in a similar spirit to Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights or Patrick Wolf's Damaris.
The lyrics to the song are a translation of an anonymous Irish poem from the seventeenth century, and the tune is traditional. Charlotte Martin's version is a cover of Sinéad O'Connor's version from I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (1990), and O'Connor in turn credits Phillip King, who recorded the song in 1979.
Personally I prefer Charlotte Martin's version to O'Connor's, because it is more passionate (strangely, I think, because Sinéad O'Connor is on the whole a more passionate artist.) I also love the darker, more mystical version recorded by Dead Can Dance.

Link to Amazon preview:
I Am Stretched Out on Your Grave (Studio)

YouTube link:
Charlotte Martin performing the song live in 2007:

#17 PJ Harvey - White Chalk

(Halloween playlist, #2)

Album: White Chalk (2007)

Lyrics excerpt:
Dorset's cliffs meet at the sea
Where I walked
(Our unborn child in me)
White chalk
(Poor scattered land)


Scratch my palms
There's blood on my hands


Reasons to love this song:
For some reason I don't quite understand now, it took me very long to learn to like PJ Harvey. White Chalk came up randomly on an online radio station I was listening to, and it captivated me. It sounded ethereal, but at the same time ominous -- an impression that grew even stronger when I read the lyrics. I realised soon that the song that made me interested in PJ Harvey came from an album untypical for her -- she plays the piano instead of the guitar, and sings in a high-pitched voice unusual for her.
Pj Harvey has many great songs with dark subjects that would be perfect for a Halloween playlist. I chose this one because I prefer to be scared this way, in songs as well as in films and literature: with just a hint of something terrible having happened.

Link to Amazon preview:
White Chalk

YouTube link:
PJ Harvey performing White Chalk on on Later With Jools Holland in 2007, looking like a ghost from the Victorian era

#16 Rasputina - Gingerbread Coffin

(Halloween playlist, #1)

Album: Cabin Fever (2002)

Lyrics excerpt:
We found an old doll that was out in the grass,
She had special powers, we said a Black Mass.
We sat in a circle all holding hands,
The doll-bed held together with old rubberbands.

She'll rise, she'll rise, she'll rise...

Reasons to love this song:
Or, rather, reasons to fear this song! Dark and/or bizarre subject matters are usual for Rasputina songs, but to me personally there is nothing more scary than children and children's toys -- especially old toys. I blame horror movies for this: whenever you see an old rocking horse, or the glassy stare of an antique doll, you know that something terrible is going to happen. So this song about girls saying a Black Mass over a dead doll is, to me, darker than their songs about cannibalism or the Inquisition. Melora Creager sings it in a childlike, merry voice, which just makes it more creepy. I don't want to know what happens when they sing: "Surprise! Surprise!"

Link to Amazon preview:
Gingerbread Coffin

YouTube link:
The studio version

#15 Tori Amos - Honey

Album: Honey is a B-side, included on the Cornflake Girl single (1994) and on the compilation A Piano (2006). A live version is included on some versions of the Hey Jupiter single (1996).

Lyrics excerpt:
A little dust never stopped me none

He liked my shoes, I kept them on
Sometimes I can hold my tongue, sometimes not
When you just skip-to-loo, my darlin'
And you know what you're doin' so don't even


You're just too used to my honey, now
You're just too used to my honey

Reasons to love this song:
Honey is a sensual, atmospheric account of a relationship that has "died". When I listen to it I see a video in my head, a passionate love story taking place in a desert town (Amos said that the song reminded her of New Mexico), with the heroine riding alone into the sunset as Amos sings don't bother coming down, I made a friend of the western sky.
Honey was recorded for Under The Pink but wasn't included on the album; in the live version released on the Hey Jupiter single, Tori Amos introduces this song with the words: This is my favorite song from Under The Pink. But the thing is, it's not on Under The Pink because it got kicked off at the last minute in mastering 'cause I'm such a dang-a-lang!


Link to Amazon preview:
Honey (2006 Remastered B-side Version)
Honey (Live)

YouTube link:
Tori Amos performing Honey in New Haven in 1996:

#14 Marissa Nadler - Leather Made Shoes

Album: Songs III :Birds On The Water (2007)

Lyrics excerpt:
Mayflower was a girl

Who came from my room
With a box of faded feathers
And her leather made shoes


But you know when she goes
She'll be crying
Cause she died all alone
With her feathers and bows

Reasons to love this song:
Leather Made Shoes is the eleventh, final track on Songs III: Birds On the Water. For me it was the first song on the album I fell in love with (I was surprised to see, on the last.fm page for the album, that it was its least-listened-to track.) I assume -- although I might be completely wrong about this -- that the Mayflower from this song is the same person she sings about in Mayflower May (The Saga of Mayflower May, 2005): without a friend, without a lover, without a care, Mayflower walked away, away towards the air; and that Mayflower is, along with other characters Nadler sings about, inspired by toys she played with as a child.

Link to Amazon preview:
Leather Made Shoes

YouTube Link:
The album version:

#13 Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - What I Am

Album: Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars (1988)

Lyrics excerpt:
And being alone is the best way to be
When I'm by myself it's the best way to be
When I'm all alone it's the best way to be
When I'm by myself, nobody else can say goodbye


Everything is temporary anyway
When the streets are wet, the colors slip into the sky
But I don't know why that means you and I are, that means you and I


I quit, I give up, nothing's good enough for anybody else, it seems...

Reasons to love this song:
I love everything about the album Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars - the hit single What I Am, Little Miss S with its sad lyrics and happy tune, Edie Brickell's cover art -- an orange cat and an orange sun drawn in a childlike way... Circle is the song I could most easily identify with. That's hardly surprising -- I'm sure everyone in the world has had this feeling of sadness and defeat some time or other.

Link to Amazon preview:
Circle

YouTube link:
The official video (I remember that one of the first things I noticed about Edie Brickell was her beautiful hair):