A slightly late halloween post

Ok, I know Halloween was yesterday, but I'm doing this post today because shut up, that's why. This is the time of year when we like to be frightened, where we watch scary films and read ghost stories. But there's something missing there - where's the scary music? It often seems to me that, while people will happily watch a scary film or read a scary book, they tend to run a mile if you play them a scary peice of music. Why is that? I don;t know. There seems to be a tendency to think of music as something that should be tuneful, cheery, something to dance to and little else. When people hear anything discordant or dark, they tend to start bitching about how it's "depressing" or "not proper music". In the interests of redressing that balance, then, here are five of my favourite frightening songs.

Of course, I had to put this one in. "Frankie Teardrops" tops every list of scary songs, and for good reason. The subject matter's dark enough - murder, suicide, damnation - but it's the music that really makes this terrifying. The spare, pulsing electronics and the gibbering vocals are bound to send shivers up your spine. For maximum terror, listen to it alone, in the dark, on headphones.

"Birds / Birds / This is not a cornhusk doll / Dipped in blood in the moonlight / Like what happened in America" Possibly the scariest opening line of all time? You can always count on Scott Walker to provide some creepy shit, and this is one of his best tracks. A song about Mussolini's mistress, Clara Petacci, who was hanged alongside him, this song makes the perfect soundtrack to a night spent cowering in a corner in a pool of your own terror sweat.

Bob Dylan is the greatest folk singer of all time. When you listen to him, it's like listening to the voice of folk music itself, all the blod and gore and darkness and beauty of the old songs made manifest. And this is one of scariest folk songs of all - a story of a woman who is tricked into taking a ride with someone who might be the Devil, or the ghost of her dead husband. As you might predict, it doesn't end well for her. Dylan wrings every ounce of fear from this song, and it's genuinely chilling. You can hear my take on the song here.

I couldn't pick one song off this album, so I've just gone ahead and posted the whole thing. Still, at just over ten minutes, it's hsorter than two of the songs on here. Grindcore is a genre where words like "brutal," "harsh," etc have become cliches, but this is a band who genuinely deserve to be described in such terms. Even among this most extreme of music genres, they stand out as one of the most challenging and, yes, scary groups out there.

This is folk music at its finest - it's nasty, it's scary, it's bloodthirsty. Billy Bragg gives a standout performance on this spine-chilling meditation on the Falklands conflict.

Bonus track:

In honour of the late, great Lou Reed, who died on Sunday, here's an appropriate track from his album The Blue Mask: