#33 Norah Jones - Miriam

(Halloween playlist, #7)
 Album: Little Broken Hearts (2012)

 Lyrics excerpt: Oh Miriam 
That's such a pretty name 
And I'll keep saying it 
Until you die 
Miriam 
You know you done me wrong
 I'm gonna smile when 
You say goodbye

 Reasons to love this song:
The fact that it sounds so innocent and gentle in the beginning, and that Norah Jones is best known for soft and gentle songs like Come Away With Me and Sunrise, makes it all the more shocking when you gradually come to realise that it's actually a murder ballad. Miriam reminded me instantly of Dolly Parton's Jolene -- it could be Jolene's dark twin. The narrator of the song is confronted by the same problem, but the solution is so different...

  YouTube link:
Like the song, the official video seems melancholy but innocent in the beginning -- until you see the blood-covered oar.
 

# 32 Loreena McKennitt: The Bonny Swans

(Halloween playlist, #6)

Album: The Mask and Mirror (1994)

Lyrics excerpt:

And there does sit my father the King 
(with a hey ho and a bonny o) 
And yonder sits my mother the Queen 
(the swans swim so bonny o)
And there does sit my brother Hugh 
And by him William, sweet and true 
And there does sit my false sister, Anne 
Who drowned me for the sake of a man 

Reasons to love this song:
I fell in love with this song at first listen just because of the tune, which is very pretty and not at all dark. Then I listened to the lyrics more carefully and thought I had heard something about making a harp out of human bones...
The Bonny Swans is a version of a ballad known at least since the seventeenth century, in many forms and under many different names (The Twa Sisters, The Cruel Sister, The Wind And Rain...). All these songs tell the story of a woman drowned by her sister because of jealousy; in the supernatural versions, such as this one, the bones of the murdered sister are made into a harp or a fiddle which, when played, accuses the murderer.
Loreena McKennitt adapted the lyrics and composed the music for this version. Although there is definitely humour in her version of the song (surely she had noticed that the heroine's father is a farmer in the first verse, but a King at the end?) the final two lines -- And there does sit my false sister, Anne who drowned me for the sake of a man -- never fail to make me shudder.

Youtube link:

The official video


And, for comparison, one of the non-supernatural versions of the same tale: Two Sisters by Clannad

# 20 Madonna - Mer Girl

(Halloween playlist, #5)

Album: Ray Of Light (1998)

Lyrics excerpt:
I ran past the churches and the crooked old mailbox
Past the apple orchards and the lady that never talks
Up into the hills, I ran to the cemetery
And held my breath, and thought about your death

I ran to the lake, up into the hills
I ran and I ran, I'm looking there still
And I saw the crumbling tombstones
All forgotten names

Link to Amazon preview:
Mer Girl

Reasons to love this song:
A rather simple, bleak and poignant song about death that concludes Ray Of Light. I've noticed that, when I play this song to friends unfamiliar with Ray Of Light or quote a part of the lyrics, they often seem surprised it's a Madonna song -- and yet, it's probably one of the most personal songs Madonna ever made.
I've seen some conspiracy theories about an alleged deep occult meaning to this song (an example can be seen in the comments to the YouTube video linked below), but I firmly believe they are rubbish. There is no need to look for hidden meanings if there is an obvious meaning -- the singer's thoughts about her mother's death and about her own mortality.

YouTube link:
A fragment of the song with the (beautiful and disturbing) backdrop video made for the Drowned World Tour:

#19 Emilie Autumn - Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches

(Halloween playlist, #4)


Album: Opheliac (Deluxe edition, Disc 2) (2010)

Lyrics excerpt:
Lunatics are dangerous
And doctors are obeyed
They also go together just like toast and marma-

Ladies are like children
With brains the size of squirrels
Lets give clitoridectomies to all the little ...

Girls are helpless trasures
That daddies must protect
So lie upon the table for the doctors to in-

Reasons to love this song:
I can't imagine a song with more dark humour than this one. It's a parody of a children's clapping song with many variations (Miss Lucy Had a Baby/Miss Suzy Had a Baby/Miss Lucy Had a Steamboat), describing the mistreatment of women in 19th century medicine and psychiatry. As in some versions of the children's song, the last word or syllable of each stanza is missing, but it is implied by the rhyme and by the first word in the next one. The simplicity of the tune and Autumn's cheerful voice make the subject matter even more terrible -- and yet, you can't help laughing. I wasn't able to get this song out of my head for days after I first heard it.

Link to Amazon preview:
Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches
Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches (Live)

YouTube link:

#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