Most haunting song ever

[DocHorror]

Motorhead - 1916

16 years old when I went the war,
To fight for a land fit for heroes,
God on my side, and a gun in my hand,
Chasing my days down to zero,
And I marched and I fought and I bled and I died,
And I never did get any older,
But I knew at the time that a year in the line,
Is a long enough life for a soldier,
We all volunteered, and we wrote down our names,
And we added two years to our ages,
Eager for life and ahead of the game,
Ready for history's pages,
And we brawled and we fought and we whored 'til we stood,
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder,
A thirst for the Hun, we were food for the gun,
And that's what you are when you're soldiers,

I heard my friend cry, and he sank to his knees,
Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother,
And I fell by his side, and that's how we died,
Clinging like kids to each other,
And I lay in the mud and the guts and the blood,
And I wept as his body grew colder,
And I called for my mother and she never came,
Though it wasn't my fault and I wasn't to blame,
The day not half over and ten thousand slain,
And now there's nobody remembers our names,
And that's how it is for a soldier.

[LadyTevar]

The most haunting songs for me tend to be Shadow Lover from the Song's of Vanyel's Time record of Mercedes Lackey's, the Shadow Lover being Death.

Shadow-Lover, never seen by day,
Only deep in dreams do you appear
Wisdom tells me I should turn away,
Love of mist and shadows, all unclear --
Nothing can I hold of you but thought
Shadow-Lover, mist and twilight wrought.

Shadow-Lover, comfort me in pain.
Love, although I never seen you face,
All who'd have me fear you speak in vain --
Never would I shrink from your embrace
Shadow-Lover, gentle is your hand
Never could another understand.

Shadow-Lover, soothe me when I mourn
Mourn for all who left me here alone,
When my grief is too much to be borne,
When my burdens crushing-great have grown,
Shadow-Lover, I cannot forget --
Help me bear the burdens I have yet.

Shadow-Lover, you alone can know
How I long to reach a point of peace
How I fade with weariness and woe
How I long for you to bring release.
Shadow-Lover, court me in my dreams,
Bring the peace that suffering redeems.

Shadow-lover from the Shadows made,
Lead me into Shadows once again.
Where you lead I cannot be afraid,
For with you I shall come home again --
In your arms I shall not fear the night,
Shadow-Lover, lead me into light.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

Though there are no words, the prelude to Act 1 of Wagner's Lohengrin always affects me, probably because the first time I ever heard it was as the opening credits of The Century of Warfare on the history channel. The romantic 19th century tragic/heroic orchestration combined with WWII footage just seemed to capture the grand and cruel emptiness of war to me.

[loomer]

The Adagio for Strings always gets me. As does Poets of the Fall's Late Goodbye.

[Zablorg]

This song deeply disturbs me. It's sung by a sadistic computer at the end of a game called Portal:

This Was A Triumph
I'm Making A Note Here:
HUGE SUCCESS
It's hard to overstate
my satisfaction.
Aperture Science
We do what we must
because we can.
For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are dead.

But there's no sense crying
over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
till you run out of cake.
And the Science gets done.
And you make a neat gun.
For the people who are
Still Alive

I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Even though you broke my heart.
And killed me.
And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because
I was so happy for you!
Now these points of data
make a beautiful line.
And we're out of beta.
We're releasing on time.
So I'm GLAD. I got burned.
Think of all the things we learned
for the people who are
still alive.

Go ahead and leave me.
I think I prefer to stay inside.
Maybe you'll find someone else
to help you.
Maybe Black Mesa. . .
THAT WAS A JOKE. HAHA FAT CHANCE.
Anyway. this cake is great.
It's so delicious and moist.
Look at me still talking
When Theres Science to do.
When I look out there,
it makes me GLAD I'm not you.
I've experiments to run.
There is research to be done.
On the people who are
still alive.

And believe me I am still alive.

I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.

I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive.

While you're dying I'll be still.

And when you're dead I will be still alive.
-----
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjGfgV7rJHI <------Click to hear it sung.

[Rawtooth]

Chopin's Prelude Op. 28, No. 15

[Drewcifer]

I just recently found Greg Weeks. His music is rather haunting. Finger-picked guitar with overlaid Moogs and Mellotrons.

Check out "Made" on his public Myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/gregweeks

(a short remix of Made is used in the Adidas pink advert. The combination of Charlie White's video and Greg Weeks' music is terribly creepy and yet strangely addictive...)

[hawkwind]

I kinda like Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss version of "Whiskey lulabye"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CigNPSIxVxk



Lady Tevar - If you like "Twa corbies" you would like Puschkin´s version (which he calls simply "Scottish ballad" and its even more gritty - though that is poem only, not a song.


J.

[Alferd Packer]

Gotta put a vote down for Moby's "My Weakness," especially when applied properly. Jesus, that scene still freaks me out.

[Hawkwings]

I kinda like Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss version of "Whiskey lulabye"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CigNPSIxVxk

Allison Krauss totally made that song work. She's an amazing singer. I really prefer the music video version of it though. The video actually enhances the song and adds to it.

EDIT: check out her version of Down in the River to Pray

[Drewcifer]

Ever heard Alison Krauss sing James Taylor's Carolina in my Mind? It's awesome.

She's incredibly talented. I could listen to her all day.

Also, her and Robert Plant have recorded an album together called Raising Sand and all the tracks I've heard so far are fantastic.

Stick With Me Baby
Polly Come Home

[hawkwind]

I have all her records including the one with Plant. Though a look at the lived out rocker next to her in video is borderline unsettling.
But she sings amazing and if there is anything sexier than chick with quitar, its the one with violin.


J.

[LadyTevar]

Lady Tevar - If you like "Twa corbies" you would like Puschkin´s version (which he calls simply "Scottish ballad" and its even more gritty - though that is poem only, not a song.


J.

There's about 6 different versions that I've heard floating around. What's his?

[hawkwind]

I m not sure if there is english translation, though it goes like:

"Guelder rose in the wild field shades the slain knight"


:´)

Its based on french translation of scotish song from 1820 anyway, so there is not much sense to translate back. Only that the theme is pretty consistent with most russian dumka´s which are sad, sentimetall and usually in "flat keys",

J.

[Havok]

I didn't see this posted. By the way, I am with Red on Strange Fruit. Just the fact that she had the balls to sing this when she did, let alone what it is about and the fact that she probably actually experienced it in some way, gives it the nod over everything else posted.

[Gullible Jones]

Another vote for Strange Fruit.

I'll also have to throw in a song by the Chameleons, Home is Where the Heart Is:

So here we are waking
Savages shaking
The road that we're taking
We've walked before

And if these times
Should seal our fate
You won't see me
At heaven's gate

Danger is lurking
Evil is working
Yet here we are hiding
Behind our doors

Come out! Come out!
It's time to grow
Enjoy the ride
One more time before we go

According to Hoyle
All cards on the table
What else can you do
When life is unstable

The night's growing colder
The enemy bolder
But as you grow older
You ceased to care

But if we run
Or try to hide
And turn our face
We'll have no hopes
To keep alive

According to Hoyle
All cards on the table
Reactions cool
The world unstable

So here we are waking...
Savages shaking...

So here we are hiding...
Danger is lurking...

[TithonusSyndrome]

"Un Grande Sommeil Noir" by Edgard Varese has such a terrifying vastness to it, it's hard not to be confronted by Cthulonic imagery and feelings as it plays. It's totally unlike anything else Varese wrote, but I guess the consonance makes it stand out even more. I recommend it strongly.

The Australian/North Irish indie rock quartet Clann Zu's "One Bedroom Apartment" is maybe a little too powerful. I would actually actively try to prevent a person with serious depression who had just finished a bad breakup from listening to it, in all honesty.

I could pluck songs from complete albums on a couple of other counts, but it would cheapen them to do so, so I'll just recommend them in full: the one man black metal project Lurker Of Chalice's self-titled full length is even better than the main project which the songwriter, Wrest, contributes to, and anyone familiar with Leviathan will know that is not light praise. And perhaps what I consider the most revered album I have ever listened to, by the late Icelandic cellist Szymon Kuran, "Requiem", is something I consider too good to share with most people for fear it will catch like wildfire and everyone and their mother will be listening to it by next year. Even if that is a distant risk, I consider the album to be much too fucking perfect to chance even such a slight risk.

[FSTargetDrone]

Pink Floyd, "When The Tigers Broke Free"

It was just before dawn
One miserable morning in black 'forty four.
When the forward commander
Was told to sit tight
When he asked that his men be withdrawn.
And the Generals gave thanks
As the other ranks held back
The enemy tanks for a while.
And the Anzio bridgehead
Was held for the price
Of a few hundred ordinary lives.

And kind old King George
Sent Mother a note
When he heard that father was gone.
It was, I recall,
In the form of a scroll,
With gold leaf and all.
And I found it one day
In a drawer of old photographs, hidden away.
And my eyes still grow damp to remember
His Majesty signed
With his own rubber stamp.

It was dark all around.
There was frost in the ground
When the tigers broke free.
And no one survived
From the Royal Fusiliers Company C.
They were all left behind,
Most of them dead,
The rest of them dying.
And that's how the High Command
Took my daddy from me.

[LadyTevar]

I m not sure if there is english translation, though it goes like:

"Guelder rose in the wild field shades the slain knight"


:´)

Its based on french translation of scotish song from 1820 anyway, so there is not much sense to translate back. Only that the theme is pretty consistent with most russian dumka´s which are sad, sentimetall and usually in "flat keys",

J.

Ok, that's just amusing. French translation of a Scottish song played on Russian dumka. But it just proves that Scottish love songs are sad and war songs happy.
Here's the version I know best.

Twa Corbies
As I was walkin' all along
I heard twa corbies makin' mae
An' th one ta th' other did sae -Ah
"Where shall we goin an' dine taday -Ah
Where shall we goin an dine taday."

"O behind yon old fell dyke
I ken there lies a new-slain knight
An' no-one ken tha' he lies there -Ah
But his hound an' his hawk an' his LadyFair -Ah
Hound an his hawk an' his LadyFair

"His hound is to the huntin' gawn
His hawk's to fetch th' wild fowl hame
An' his Lady has tak'n another mate -Ah
So we mae make our dinner sweet -Ah
We mae make our dinner sweet.

"Ye sit on his white heart's vein
An' I'll pluck out his bonnie blue eyen
With aye a lock of his golden hair -Ah
We'll thick our nest when it grows bare -Ah
Thick our nest when it grows bare

"Many a man fightin' makes maim
But none shall ken where he has gain
An' thru his bones when they lie bare -Ah
The wind shall blow for-ever-mere -Ah
The wind shall blow For-Ever-Mere"

The other version goes like this. Chorus/refrain in italics are sung with every verse.

There were two corbies in a tree
Hey down-dah-down, a-donnie do down
And they were black, as they might be
With a down -dell- down...
There were two corbies in a tree,
And they were black as they might be....
With a down derry-derry-derry down --
Down

And one of them turned to his mate
What shall we for our breakfast ate

There is a slain knight down in the fen
And where he is, none do ken

His hawk has to his hunting gone
His hound to fetch the wild game home

And his lady's found another mate
So we made take him for our plate (fete?)

There were two corbies in a tree
And they were black as they might be
With a down derry-derry-derry down --
Down

There's another line about a 'fallow deer' that comes and bathes the slain knight with her tongue, then lies down and dies with him. The song ends with a line about please send all gentlemen such a leman (aka mistress/lover) as will lie down and die with them.

[The Yosemite Bear]

reminds me of a "Fox hunting Song" that seems to be about a different kind of fox.

the highway man kind

also Highwayman by Noyes, remade into a song by Lorenna McKennit.[/quote]

[Thanas]

This version of Waltzing Matilda by Tom Waits is very haunting IMO.




Live version

[Almightyboredone]

Another vote for strange fruit, and Mad Mad World.

Another I'd like to add is Fiddler one the Green, by Demons and Wizards.

Sad voices they're calling
Our precious girl she can't be gone
How bitter this morning
When daddy's darling
Went out and started her day

Wasn't there a dream, last night
Like a spring never ending
Still the water runs clear
through my mind
On the field I can see a fiddler
The fiddler on the green
And a sad boy
I took him too early
Would you mind
Would you mind
Would you mind
If I take you

To be with you
To be with you
To be with you
To be with you

The sun seemed bright
The air was clear
The air was clear

A trick of light
Turned red into green
She saw the light
Her face was pale
Her body smashed
Her beauty's gone

Isn't it a shame
The reaper said
He is quite alone here
And still waiting for you
Oh I really did fail for the first time
Spoke the fiddler, poor old fiddler
The fiddler on the green
The fiddler on the green
It would be nice...

Take my hand

Just hold my hand
I'll take you there
Your pain will go away

[hawkwind]

Lady Tevar - its not surprising because there was always french-scottish connection because the adversity to england and better russian society tended to have french education in the time the song was translated.

I didnt knew the other version though. That sounds more like the english "greenman myth".

What I find interesting on folk songs is that they tend to have similar structure.
Its like thesis/antithesis/conclusion

How do you like this?

http://rapidshare.com/files/72845655/02 ... _.ogg.html

J.

[NomAnor15]

Ok, I found another one that should have been on my list; 'Hoist The Colours', from the beginning of Pirates 3.

[Kanastrous]

I can't remember which Chumbawamba song it is, but there's a verse that always stuck with me...

Should any ask us why we died
we tell them that our leaders lied
Sold us down by the river's side
Whose side are you on?