The Doors'
'Wishful Sinful' features some eerie wind instrumentation... in a
sort of similar vein there's Cathedral's
'Reaching Happiness, Touching Pain' and it's supremely creepy, sad fluteness.
Jane's Addiction's
'Then She Did...' features a bit of an odd break... according to guitarist Dave Navarro, "On the breakdown of 'Then She Did…' I improvised with my echo set on infinite repeats. You get this eerie feeling, but you can’t really hear it. It’s very quiet—I wanted you to feel uncomfortable and not know why."
On a trad song tip, Irish folk song 'Weila Waile' is a cheery little ditty about infanticide...
The Dubliner's version is one of the most famous... Lisa Hannigan
recorded a version that featured on the soundtrack to Irish horror film
The Hole in the Ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5prT2qiiWY
Also, the video is horrible.
The lyrics and some of the vocalizations are a bit naff, but I have to admit, I actually love that song. Learnt to play it on guitar and all. Also, I don't recall seeing the video during childhood, but there's something nostalgic about the locations in it. Ph.D. keyboardist Tony Hymas composed the
theme tune to the original Mr. Men series, oddly enough.
World In Action end theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95qLDc7zwYY
Ah yes, that old chestnut, cast a gloom over my childhood too with it's dreary dirgeness, like John Paul Jones having a mental breakdown during an extended solo.
Actually, if we're doing TV themes then
Dramarama calls for the obligatory mention... and of course
Chocky, which is also rather sad and mournful.
Eerie logo tunes
Video logos also proved unsettling, and doubly so with horror films and the like where the anticipatory sense of dread and anxiety was already there:
Vestron Video logo.Orion Video logo.And so forth.
Stevie Wonder - I Just Called To Say I Love You
I find it hard to put into words how distressing I find this song.
Yeah, there's an odd detached feeling about it and it felt like an odd 'pop' song, even as a kid.
Silver by the Pixies makes me feel carsick. Like, not just nauseated, but the specific sensation of carsickness. I wonder if Principal Skinner played it in his office.
It's a beautiful tune but I think I understand what you mean. I guess the guitar slide bit only adds to the uneasiness.
It's Bailey's Walk by The Pixies that gets me.
One of my fave Pixies B-sides. Saw them do it live and all.
Beck's Mutations is one of my favourite albums, and its closing track - Runner's Dial Zero - is one of his most eerie escapades lyrically and musically. I believe the American version of the album just ends with Static, Diamond Bollocks is hidden..and no Runner's on it.
https://youtu.be/ros8KQyWArc
Yeah, that's a great sad, eerie tune.
Mutations is one of my fave Beck albums actually, some fantastic songwriting on display.
The start of Because by the Beatles
'Moonlight Sonata' backwards, innit? I recall Ian McDonald suggesting in
Revolution in the Head that the song's feeling of icy detachment may have been a result of Lennon's heroin use at the time. Actually, speaking of Beatles eeriness, McDonald points out George's unearthly wail at the end of his beautiful
'Long Long Long'... he also opined that the "skeletal" closing Gm7 is one of the most "resonant" in The Beatles catalogue, it's certainly a lovely, emotive chord.
