A Soundtrack That Never Was
My Mixtape’s A Masterpiece is a weekly feature in which a guest compiles a playlist around some theme. This week, Brad Milne assembles 13 songs that would fit right in on a horror soundtrack. Read Brad’s thoughts on each song and listen along to the Spotify playlist on top and/or the YouTube playlist at the bottom of the post.
For this playlist, I decided to try something a little different. It’s not a playlist I’d ever created, and it doesn’t obviously exist for any film. The playlist is made up of songs that I like to think would work well as the soundtrack for a horror movie. Full disclosure: some of the songs I chose already soundtrack a horror film—maybe even more than one—but presently, I am not aware that they do.
1 “This Protector” by The White Stripes
The first song I thought fitting for a fictional horror film belongs to a fictional brother and sister duo out of Detroit Rock City, The White Stripes. The song is the last track off White Blood Cells and is called “This Protector.” With its opening refrain telling the audience they thought they heard a sound, and that there is no one else around, always gives me chills and makes me think that people compiling soundtracks too often go for the obvious choice of song for their horror films. Shake it up a little, and this one would work wonders, adding dread and fear in the audience from the opening shots.
2 “Every Single Night” by Fiona Apple
For song number two, I went with was Fiona Apple, off her 2012 album The Idler Wheel…. It’s the lyrics more than the tone of the song, with Apple wanting to feel everything, and every night enduring a fight with her brain. There are perhaps songs better suited sonically from the extraordinary machine herself, but the terrors of the song’s lyrics would fit a horror movie perfectly.
3 “Push The Sky Away” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
From my favourite troubadour of the macabre, Nick Cave, comes the next song—the titular track off the album Push The Sky Away. The tone of the music matches perfectly the lyrics. While its lyrics aren’t explicitly horrific, I always found that Cave’s baritone intones his lyrics with a level of menace (whether intentional or not).
4 “I’m Afraid Of Americans” by David Bowie
Probably my favourite of the songs from the man who sold the world, David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid Of Americans” tells the story of Johnny who seemingly lives in fear of American. Bowie fills each note and word of the song with a sense of dread. It’s an effective bit of sonic paranoia.
5 “Neon Bible” by The Arcade Fire
“Neon Bible,” off The Arcade Fire’s album of the same name, tells of a possible next world in which the denizens of Earth follow a Neon Bible and rarely bother to question if it’s the right thing. In the chorus it repeatedly warns us that there is not much chance for survival if the titular bible is right. It’s a song that would work extremely well in some filmmaker’s vision of a doomed world.
6 “Wolf Like Me” by TV On The Radio
This is a ferocious tune that spells out in no uncertain terms the travails of falling in love. Everything thing from the rapid tempo to its lyrics wanting someone to “recognize this hideous thing inside.” It’s a catchy ditty one could imagine soundtracking characters on screen being dispatched quickly as it sonically spells out what’s happening to the unfortunate blood bags of some Wolfman-style scenario.
7 “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
I am sure this next one has been used before, but if it has, I haven’t seen the movie. [EDITOR’S NOTE: It was used in BLADE, THE MIDNIGHT HOUR, and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON amongst others] A hackneyed and obvious choice, but it must make the list for both my affinity with the song, but also for the lyrics that are all imbued with dread. From John Fogerty imploring us “don’t come round tonight/for it’s bound to take your life” to him hoping “we are quite prepared to die”—it’s an excellent track that fills you with fear.
8 “If I Live Or If I Die” by Cuff The Duke
With eerie lyrics centering on a man’s desperation to find some truth, crying out to a god he may or may not believe in, this song makes the list mostly because of its sound. It’s a hard, angry kind of tune which would work well scoring any horror movie.
9 “Courage” by The Tragically Hip
This song by the Canadian institution would work well mostly due to the haunting fear Downie imbues the tune with; repeating how “Courage couldn’t come at a worse time.” It’s this haunting lament repeated often which qualifies it perfectly for a horror movie.
10 “Lost In Hollywood” by System Of A Down
The lyrics in the song don’t offer the sense of foreboding as other songs on the list. However, it isn’t hard to imagine the band singing of the soul-corrupting influence of the place where the palm trees grow, and young starlets succumb to the pressures the town exerts over them. One particularly stirring refrain in the song is the band warning the song’s main character, as well as the audience, to never trust Hollywood.
11 “W.M.A.” by Pearl Jam
“W.M.A.” was released in response to the murder of Malice Green by Detroit police. It’s more a sonic whisper of a song then the usual bombast the band was known for in their early albums. But it’s this tone that helps lend an air of the ethereal, Vedder’s voice effectively conveying the haunted nature of the song, as it uniquely tells how the tragedy unfolded.
12 “Change (In The House Of Flies)” by Deftones
Each guitar chord, drumbeat, and Chino Moreno lyric seeps with dread. From the line “I pulled off your wings/then I laughed” to “give you the gun/blow me away.” The song is ripe for the plucking and would be a welcome addition to any horror film.
13 “White Moon” by The White Stripes
Finally, we reach the end of this soundtrack for a film that never was. I decided to bookend the playlist with The White Stripes, with a song off their album, Get Behind Me Satan. This would work well in a gothic horror—especially as the song is, in Jack White’s own words, a love letter to a ghost (in the form of screen siren Rita Hayworth). Aside from a gothic horror, I feel its playful nature would make the song primed for a horror-comedy as well, where the lead could be in love with a ghost with humorous results.
