Post by Joanna on Feb 13, 2015 23:21:22 GMT -5
13 Scary Love Songs
To some, “love is patient, love is kind,” but to the musicians on this list, love is violence, stalking and destruction of property. In honor of what may arguably be the scariest holiday of the year, Valentine’s Day, and the film release of the erotic thriller 50 Shades of Grey, we bring you the 13 Scariest Love Songs. With themes ranging from keying cars to necrophilia, these artists seem to have just as much trouble with their love lives as us regular folk. Most of the songs seem fairly tongue-in-cheek, but with some, love begets violence.
13. “Lovefool” (The Cardigans). On the surface, the disco-pop sheen of The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” is all Lisa Frank hearts and unicorns. The song’s dreamy element is further cemented by Nina Persson’s Swedish dimples and its affiliation with Baz Luhrmann’s psychedelic Romeo plus Juliet. Fans never seem to remember that Shakespeare’s tortured lovebirds perish at the end of the tale when played by the scrawny-yet-sublime Leonardo DiCaprio and ethereal Claire Danes. And all those crushing teens who once religiously said goodnight to a poster of the Oscar-nominated actor gazing through a fish tank don’t realize the tune paints their devotion as pathetic, if not outright obsessive.
The narrator of the song cries, prays, and begs for the object of her affection to declare his undying love even if it’s a downright lie. Go ahead and fool her if he must, she only wants him to promise to never leave – the underlying and unspoken threat here being that if he ever tries to escape her clutches, she’ll cut him. The only appropriate response when faced with this sort of break from reality is borrowed from The Dismemberment Plan’s “The Ice of Boston,” wherein Travis Morrison bellows to an imaginary Gladys Knight: “Oh, Gladys, girl, I love you, but oh, get a life!”
“No One Else” (Weezer). “No One Else” is the kind of love song that can be written only by someone with zero real-life experience in matters of love. This probably isn’t far from the truth for a young Rivers Cuomo, who envisioned the perfect girl as someone just a shade more animated than a silicone love doll. “I want a girl who will laugh for no one else,” he sings, expounding upon the virtues of a lover who stays at home all day applying makeup and exorcizing every last shred of her personality. It goes without saying the song is deeply misogynistic, though its saving grace is its own absurdity. “No One Else” has aged well, not only because it’s insanely catchy, but because it addresses a deep, dark aspect of the male psyche that’s too often swept under the rug. Jealousy and possessiveness are real feelings, and only by taking them to their logical extreme can we see how truly ridiculous they are.
11. “Before He Cheats” (Carrie Underwood). Carrie Underwood hit it big with “Before He Cheats” in 2006. The song rationalizes trashing her former lover’s car because of his wandering ways. Keying cars seems to be a go-to for jilted exes, but this song takes it to extremes by busting the windows and headlights, “[slashing] a hole in all four tires,” and then justifies it all by making it seem like an altruistic endeavor because she “might’ve saved a little trouble for the next girl” – presumably the one with whom he’s cheating. Personally, I would love to hear the followup song to this where Carrie spends the night in jail because her ex prosecutes her for the destruction of property, which can result jail time and hefty fines. So before carving your “name into his leather seats” (seriously, that’s how you get caught) and keying your ex’s car, maybe try writing a strongly worded letter instead.
10. “Pictures of You” (The Cure). When an obsession over someone becomes all-consuming to the point where it’s all you can think about, you lose track of time, friends seem far away and you go about daily tasks like an automaton because your passion is lost wandering in the emptiness that lies between love and unlove. You retrace your memories (“Remembering you standing quiet in the rain”) and regrets (“If only I’d thought of the right words I could have held on to your heart”) in hopes of finding solace, but the yearning only serves as a reminder of what you no longer have. “Pictures of You” comes from a pit of despair and it’s scary because it’s so damn real.
9. “Fabulous Muscles” (Xiu Xiu). On the title track to Fabulous Muscles, Xiu Xiu imagines the romance between an athlete and the urn of ashes he keeps underneath his lifting rig. This 2004 album comes loaded with vocal acrobatics from singer Jamie Stewart, but in “Fabulous Muscles,” he shelves the screams and lets himself be unabashedly, horrifyingly tender. Here, love is something that passes between bodies: living bodies, deformed bodies, breaking bodies, oozing bodies, decaying bodies, even bodies run through the incinerator and reduced to piles of heavy dust. “Cremate me after you come on my lips,” begs Stewart: “Honey boy. Place my ashes in a vase beneath your workout bench.” Love is visceral and packed with pain; Xiu Xiu envisions it in all its gory extremes.
8. “Kiss with a Fist” (Florence and the Machine). Florence and the Machine add an alarming twist to the theme of domestic violence by reveling in its spilt blood. Most disturbingly, the song poses as an invitation to violence and instead of the abuse being one-sided, it is a mutual return with both partners engaging in malicious behavior. “Kiss with a Fist” delineates an unhealthy sadomasochistic relationship where tit-for-tat goes to the extreme of breaking each others’ jaws and legs. The partners seem to be both foes and allies: first the protagonist sets fire to their bed and then invites the other to “sit back and watch the bed burn” together. In true 50 Shades of Grey style, the pair celebrate their dysfunction with the constant refrain of “a kiss with a fist is better than none.”
7. “Run For Your Life” (The Beatles). Not only is “Run For Your Life” the creepiest, most misogynistic song in the Beatles’ repertoire; it’s also a bit of a ripoff. John Lennon admitted to stealing the tune’s opening lyric: “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, Than to be with another man,” from Arthur Gunter’s “Baby Let’s Play House,” which Elvis famously covered in 1955. Lennon took Gunter’s longing sentiment at face value and injected a healthy amount of rage and jealousy, resulting in a song that’s not nearly as playful as its buoyant melody suggests. It’s no wonder that he later disavowed “Run for Your Life” as his least favorite Beatles song, but by that time, the world had already been granted a peek into the mind of an insecure wreck who would stop at nothing to ensure that his lover remained his and only his.
6. “Born to Die” (Lana Del Rey). Technically, we’re all born to die. It’s a fairly clichéd sentiment. We were all brought into this world and will all be taken from it. The only thing making the trip worthwhile is finding another to share the load. So, when Lana Del Rey tells her beau to choose his last words one last time because “you and I, we were born to die,” it’s not entirely clear if she’s warning him of impending doom or just making a casual statement about the human condition. Yet, nothing ups the creepiness factor of the title track from Del Rey’s second full-length quite like the timbre of her monotone voice. And, of course, her bloody corpse emerging from a ball of flames in the arms of her lover at the end of the video. The polarizing artist told Q Magazine the song is not about sex, so check that one off the list of influences. But, strangely, she equates this dirge, with all its talk of insane girls, getting high and taking a walk on the wild side, with finding someone who makes her feel truly happy. One person’s bliss is another’s dark, twisted fantasy.
While “Crazy” still stands as its greatest song, Gnarls Barkley would go on to flip that song title into something more literal later in the duo’s often overlooked St. Elsewhere. Replace “mancer” with “phillia” and you get the picture. “Very naughty necrophilia,” Cee Lo Green says – to clarify there are levels involved in this practice. Off-putting, but then again, so is a lot of Gnarls Barkley’s material (including “Crazy”). What makes “Necromancer” stick is how the dark arts seem to seep into the production; the brooding vocal samples are mixed higher than Cee Lo’s voice, implying the voodoo in the background is much more important. Random riffs break from within the detritus to add a thrill to what’s a disturbing fantasy at its core.
4. “Love You More” (Eminem). Recent Eminem invective isn’t problematic solely because of the misogyny. It’s all delivered haphazardly, giving it a hollowed, saying-it-just-to-say it feeling. Needless to say, Eminem always had the same mindset. (Which brings up another problem: He never really grew up). But, a decade earlier, he managed to squeeze every bit of empathy he could from the quagmire. Eminem did that even in the bonus track of what was then his worst album. Slipping into a drug stupor that would eventually sideline him, Eminem again found a way to twist his obsession with his career-long muse into something compelling. In fact, you can argue this is the most compelling look you’ll get.
3. “Die, Die My Darling” (The Misfits). In their typical macabre fashion, the Misfits denote a love affair gone wrong in “Die, Die My Darling,” which borrows its name from a 1965 British horror film. The song has all the undertones of a Romeo and Juliet-style love affair, but ultimately eschews the romance of Shakespeare’s wayward lovers for something darker. When Glenn Danzig sings, “Just shut your pretty eyes,” the compliment is quickly lost through the following line: “I’ll be seeing you in hell.” The violence remains sheathed in the forms of “oblong boxes” and “dead ends.” Never does Danzig promise to actually harm anyone, but the intent remains clear. The objective is less of an ill-fated suicide pact and more of a homicide with the gory visual of “your life drains on the floor.” Moral of story: if Glenn Danzig tells you you’re pretty, run!
2. “Closer” (Nine Inch Nails). The deeper complications behind “Closer” are perhaps overshadowed by its legendary chorus: “I want to fuck you like an animal.” It is sung from the perspective of a man who desires sex to the point it is the only thing keeping him alive. He claims an “absence of faith,” yet his lover brings him “closer to God.” His attachments and desires are possessive and absolute. Most frightening is the implication that without this absolute possession, the protagonist is truly lost, physically and existentially.
1. “#1 Crush” (Garbage). Like a lacquered red nail scraping across skin, “#1 Crush” drives home its glamoir with a sick edge of violence. This isn’t just Shirley Manson at her most calculating and demented; this is arguably peak Garbage. Manson sings as a woman consumed by what she calls love, totally obsessed, willing to die for her beloved a million times just so long as her affections are returned – or even acknowledged. Her perfect snaking chorus ends with the words “I will never be ignored,” as if we needed the confirmation that she was stuck in our heads for good. Few confessions of romantic intent come loaded with this much threat and even fewer manage to sound quite this sexy. When Manson crushes, she crushes hard enough to break bone.
Source: Claire Sevigny, Sasha Geffen, Brian Josephs, Janine Schaults and Collin Brennan, Consequence of Sound.