Slightly Off-Kilter

Songs for Creating Demons

By Barry Maher

I listen to music when I write. This column for example is being created with the help of—or perhaps in spite of—a piece of music that seems to be an unfortunate blend of God Save the King and The Moldavan National Anthem. But creating my new supernatural thriller, The Great Dick: And The Dysfunctional Demon, a thriller that’s able to laugh at itself, (one reader called it “Horrifying and Delightful!”) required an even more horrifying type of music. Music like: 

Dust by Fleetwood Mac 

Fleetwood Mac? Aren’t they much too pop for horror? Actually Dust was from an early incarnation of Fleetwood Mac, with no hits and lots of drug problems, not the later version of the group with lots of hits and even more drug problems. The lyrics to Dust come from a 1909 poem by Rupert Brook, who was no bundle of sunshine.

“When your swift hair is quiet in death
And through the lips corruption
Thrust to still the labor of my breath”

Midnight Mile by the Rolling Stones. 

This haunting tune about a mad day on the road “with a head full of snow,” gets me picturing Keith Richards as the guitar playing, coked-up, walking dead. Perhaps not a huge stretch.


I Put a Spell on You by Screaming Jay Hawkins. Writing about obsession? 

Here’s Screaming Jay screaming that he doesn’t care if you don’t want him. It doesn’t matter to him at all. He’s still yours. A non-returnable gift that threatens to keep on giving.


She’s Not There by the Zombies

This one doesn’t make my list for the name of the group, but for the mood the music evokes. And the lyrics do have a touch of the sinister. In this British song, a mysterious woman is causing untold suffering, Like the singer, we can only wonder about how much she lied, with no way of telling “how many people cried.” I know what you’re thinking. But the song was released in 1965, considerably before Maggie Thatcher ever became Prime Minister.


No Bravery by James Blunt 

I thought this guy wrote love songs, but this one features shallow graves, burning houses, the odor of death, and dying families. I listen to this, then write horror to cheer up. 

Tie a Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando. Not a horror classic, just a horrible song. I can’t listen to it without dreaming of tying a yellow ribbon as tightly as possible around Tony Orlando’s neck. And I understand the reasoning of a homicidal demon.

Last and in so many ways least, Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath 

Apparently, Satan, with eyes of fire, is coming after the singer. That might explain the vocal. I think this one is from the Black Sabbath album Blue Skies, Sunny Days and Lollypops, or it may be from Kittens, Puppies and Other Easy Meals. To quote a key phrase, “Please, God help me.”

Take a listen. The singing sounds like a weasel caught in a meat grinder. The question this little ditty raises is more theological than musical. Namely: why would a loving God allow something like this to exist? And to somehow be a hit? When I first heard it on my car radio, I thought my transmission was disintegrating, but it was only humanity’s musical taste.

Check out Barry Maher’s dark humor supernatural thriller, The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon, on Amazon. Contact him and/or sign up for his newsletter at www.barrymaher.com.