The psychedelia of the Sixties translated its share of horrific fantasies into swirls of ominous sound, echoes of bad trips that spelunked into the listener's wormy subconscious. But in its definitive form – the live version on Pink Floyd's Ummagumma LP – "Careful With that Axe, Eugene" is less a moody freakout of a rock jam than a lysergically summoned haunted house, offering up door after door for you to open against your better judgment.
This dramatic monologue from a nosy neighbor is set to a palette of eerie sound effects – subdued metallic clangs, low-rent electronic flutters –
"I don't think you can shock an audience anymore [today]. If I cut my arm off and ate it, OK, that would be shocking. But you can only do it twice."
a peculiarly modern vision of damnation: not the blazing fires of the Biblical description, but a gray, wearying static of perpetual despair.
The music video sees Harvey undulating to a sinister cha-cha rhythm and thrashing underwater in a red satin dress: She genuinely struggled to come up to the surface, she told Spin, thanks to the weight of her hefty black wig.
Nearly every Nick Cave song is scary; few artists have dedicated themselves to the grim and macabre like the Australian Bad Seeds leader
"The End" was developed during the group's tenure as the house band at Whisky a Go Go when one night, after Morrison had dropped acid, he improvised the song's tumultuous ending. They were fired the next day.
the song edges into dark obsession and, eventually, pure horror ("It is your turn, beloved/It is your flesh that I wear"), Cohen's voice maintains a trancelike composure. No wonder gloom-rock poet laureate Nick Cave has been covering the song for more than 30 years.
