Creepy and Haunting Songs
Although there are many campy songs for the holiday out there — THE MONSTER MASH comes to mind, so does the theme to Jaws — Frank has two very specific Hallowe’enie songs in mind: one that creeps him out every time he hears it, and another so haunting it makes his skin crawl. Let’s sit down around a campfire and talk about them…
Country music has a long tradition of murder ballads and stories of mystery and imagination, but it doesn’t get much creepier than the B-side to Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton‘s 1968 single WE’LL GET AHEAD SOMEDAY.
JEANNIE’S AFRAID OF THE DARK was written by Dolly and primarily performed by her, but it also features one of country music’s most supremely unsettling deliveries by Porter.
The song begins as the benign tale of a scared little girl who wakes up crying. She runs into Mommy and Daddy’s room to share their bed because she’s afraid of the dark.
By the second verse, though, things get complicated for our little heroine when her parents take her to visit a graveyard, to place flowers on the tombstones of family members. Soon Jeannie notices that it must be dark underground, leading her to tell her parents that, because of her fear, when Jeannie dies she doesn’t want to be buried.
This being country music, Jeannie is, of course, not long for this world.
Porter takes the spotlight to explain in his chilling recitation that the couple never understood why their only child suffered from such fear, “because we looked after Jeannie with the very best of care. Perhaps it was death that she was so afraid of,” he says, “because it took her one dark, stormy night.”
As the song winds down to its gruesome conclusion, we learn that Dolly and Porter place an eternal flame on Jeannie’s grave so that even in the afterlife, on the darkest night, she won’t be plagued by her once paralyzing fear, perhaps offering solace in death for something they couldn’t resolve in their daughter’s life.
Like many of Dolly's masterpieces, was this one inspired by something that happened to her (such as the red-haired bank clerk who flirted with her husband and became the basis for JOLENE)? Maybe. In interviews over the years, she has admitted to a fear of flying. “I don’t like being cooped up,” she has said.
DUELING BANJOS was not always haunting.
Initially composed in 1954 by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith as a banjo instrumental, he called it FEUDIN’ BANJOS. The song features interpolations of Dr. Richard Shuckburgh’s 1755 composition YANKEE DOODLE.
It had its first broad release nine years later on an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, where it was played by The Dillards (portraying a visiting musical family, the Darlings), along with Griffith himself. It was still not very creepy.
It's not until almost a decade later, when used in John Boorman’s Southern thriller Deliverance, that it starts to twist into something like a slow-rolling mist rising off the bayou.
As the story goes (about 15 minutes into Deliverance), our bored city slickers stop to refuel their caravan. Their snark causes some unease with the locals, and Drew Ballinger (Ronny Cox) steps in to strum his guitar and possibly defuse the tension.
Lonnie (Billy Redden), a developmentally disabled backwoods boy, clicks off a sublime response on his banjo.
+ Well, except that Redden couldn't play the banjo and Boorman thought his hand movements looked unconvincing. So, local musician Mike Addis was brought in to depict the movement of the boy's left hand. Mike hid behind Billy, with his left arm in Redden's shirt sleeve. Careful camera angles kept Addis out of frame and completed the illusion.
Leading to a memorable scene depicting how modernism's smug homogeneity clashes with local, isolated pre-War culture. Which, in itself, is a kind of Hallowe’en idea.
DEULING BANJOS was arranged and performed for the film by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell and appeared on the Deliverance soundtrack album. When Arthur Smith heard it, he sued and eventually won, earning songwriting credit as well as royalties.
If you dig campy Hallowe’en tracks, here’s a few classics to explore:
The Clovers : LOVE POTION NO. 9
Just Us Girls : TIME WARP
Fifth Estate, The : DING DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD
Atlanta Rhythm Section : SPOOKY
Jumpin' Gene Simmons : HAUNTED HOUSE
See you soon
May you be working in the lab, late one night, and your eyes behold an eerie sight… Happy Hallowe’en!
