SOUNDTRACK: BILLIE EILISH-“Bury a Friend” (2019).
A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not. So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long. The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like. So I picked 11 of them to post about.
There’s a ton of reasons why Billie is an unlikely pop sensation. I won’t bother going through the myriad reasons, I’ll just talk about the music of this song–a suitably creepy song to kick off a series of Spooky Stories.
The song starts with a muted, almost musical drumbeat and clicks. Then Billie’s processed voice sings with what I assumed is a slowed down version of her voice singing parallel with her.
After a muttered “come here,” and a screech, the verse starts. It’s no less creepy and possibly more hypnotic. It leads to a bridge in which at the end of each features a voice that cries quietly (and then reverses n the next line).
The repeated refrain of “I wanna end me” is probably the least creepy section of the song.
There’s one more part, a quickly spoken line ending with three thumps that lead to the next line.
Then it all repeats.
There’s no prettiness, no poppiness. It’s like a slightly more dancey version of Portishead. It’s pretty darn cool.
I have no idea why it/she is so popular. But good for her.
And the video is really freaking creepy too.
[READ: October 17, 2019] “The Foghorn”
Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.
This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween. It is lovingly described thusly:
Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.
There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.
Gertrude Atherton had a story in the previous Ghost Box. I was pretty impressed by it.
This story is also pretty twisted–fans of the macabre should really check her out.
I Just Read About That... 