Creepy country songs

Joe Butcher · Post by **Joe Butcher** » 16 Jun 2007 12:21 pm

"Skip a Rope" by Henson Cargill

"Sam Stone" by John Prine...that line, "there's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes" gives me chills.

Howard Kalish · Post by **Howard Kalish** » 16 Jun 2007 12:51 pm

I dug out the Tex Edwards LP I played on - It's called Tex Edwards and Out On Parole, recorded in Austin in 1989. It may be available on CD. It's called Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill.

I see the LP is for sale online. Great line up of Austin players, including Marty Muse on Steel, John X Reed on guitar, Mike Buck on drums and JJ Barrera on Bass. This guy also goes by T. Tex Edwards. Here's the list of songs, and note the inclusion of Psycho, which is by Leon Payne. Way spooky with ambiguous references to murder, pedophilia, matricide and dry cleaning.

I'm Gonna Kill You (Wynn Stewart)
LSD Made A Wreck Outta Me
Pardon Me, I've Got SOmeone to Kill
The Girl On Death Row
Psycho
You Ain't Never Gonna Live to Love Saturday Night Again
Smitty
The Cold Hard Facts of Life
Dolores
Beatin' On the Bars
Strangler In the Night
The Rubber Room
Country Hix's

A charming list of hits. The cover on the LP is great too. A wacked out ethnic variation on Porter's Cold Hard Facts cover.

Skip Edwards · Post by **Skip Edwards** » 16 Jun 2007 1:34 pm

Isn't Green Green Grass of Home sung by someone who is recently departed?

But that's nowhere near as creepy as Achy Breaky Heart....

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 16 Jun 2007 4:49 pm

Here's an interesting tale about the writing of the song, "Psycho" by Leon Payne.

http://atangledweb.squarespace.com/tang ... payne.html

Cliff Kane · Post by **Cliff Kane** » 16 Jun 2007 4:53 pm

That's funny, I thought of "Achy Breaky Heart", too. That's some sick stuff, fer sure. You guys have covered a lot, Neil does "Down by the River", that's kind of creepy, Howlin' Wolf's "Little School Girl" and the Stones "Brown Sugar", are kind of creepy. There's a great Nick Cave album called "Murder Ballads" that has revisions of "Stagger Lee" and "Pretty Polly", plus some other killing music. Dylan put out a few albums in the 90's--"Good As I Been to You" and "World Gone Wrong"--where he just does old folk and blues songs, and it's pretty bloody and earthy. Where is the 21st century music of dark catharsis? It seems like a folk tradition that goes way back to the time of sails and gallows, of ladies and predators, and has been taken up by country music. I think that a lot of ganster rap is similar and is carrying on the tradition, eventhough a lot of people don't see the connection (I think it's a race thing that gets in the way for some people), and some alternative political rock is addressing the issues of war and poverty that are ravaging our lives today, but where are the traditional artists that are infusing this long running musical idiom with the blight and horror of today?

Duane Reese · Post by **Duane Reese** » 16 Jun 2007 4:58 pm

"Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got) - David Houston

"Diesel Smoke" - The Sons of the Pioneers

Well there's that Randy Travis tune, 'Digging Up Bones'.

That song was written by Paul Overstreet and Al Gore (yes, that Al Gore - the one who "used to be the next president of the United States"). Is that not scary?!

Colm Chomicky · Post by **Colm Chomicky** » 17 Jun 2007 5:16 am

Yep, Paycheck's Pardon Me number was mentioned. Hat's off to a polite killer !

Per Berner · Post by **Per Berner** » 18 Jun 2007 6:29 am

Creepy and tongue-in-cheek:

the last verse of David Allan Coe's You never even called me by my name - after he says something like "I told my friend he hadn't written the perfect country & western song, because there was nothing in it about trucks, trains, prisons, mama or getting drunk. So he sat down and wrote another verse, and I realized my friend HAD written the perfect country & western song:"

"I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison
and I went to pick her up in the rain
but before I could get to the station in the pickup truck
she got run over by a @@@@ old train"

And what about "Saginaw, Michigan"? Isn't that a bit mean-spirited behavior?

Bob Ritter · Post by **Bob Ritter** » 18 Jun 2007 9:01 pm

Alan Jackson "midnight in montgomery"

Steve Alcott · Post by **Steve Alcott** » 18 Jun 2007 9:18 pm

You aint heard creepy til you've heard "Psycho Santa", Thirsty Dave Hansen's Xmas lyrics to Leon Payne's classic.

Dustin Rigsby · Post by **Dustin Rigsby** » 19 Jun 2007 4:33 am

Any song by Kenny Chesney

Dick Wood · Post by **Dick Wood** » 19 Jun 2007 5:50 am

We're going to the Chapel and we're gonna get married makes me turn on all the lights in the house.

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 19 Jun 2007 12:04 pm

"You Wouldn't even cross the street to say goodbye" by Willie Nelson contains the line 'Once you said you'd do most anything to keep our love, you'd tear out your tongue before you'd tell me lies'

I want to be Hugged to Death by You -Hawkshaw Hawkins

and

I DIed All Over You, "I'm so sad and blue in the graveyard with 6 feet of dirt overhead...this is the first time that I've been dead" "I've got a crick in my back and my future's lookin' black, 'cause I died, all over you" Bud Messner & Skyline boys

I also second Knoxville Girl !

Alvin Blaine · Post by **Alvin Blaine** » 19 Jun 2007 12:11 pm

Duane Reese wrote:
Well there's that Randy Travis tune, 'Digging Up Bones'.
That song was written by Paul Overstreet and Al Gore (yes, that Al Gore - the one who "used to be the next president of the United States"). Is that not scary?!

The Nashville singer/songwriter Al Gore is NOT the same person as the politician from Nashville.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 19 Jun 2007 1:17 pm

"I've got tears in my ears, from lying on my back, crying on my pillow, over you..."

Vince Luke · Post by **Vince Luke** » 20 Jun 2007 10:53 am

One of my favorites is "25 Minutes to Go." Written by Shel Silverstein, performed by Johnny Cash on the Folsom Prison album. It's got humorous lines, but it's the chronicle of the end of a death-row inmate's life.

The Pine Valley Cosmonauts (a revolving ensemble of Bloodshot Records' artists) have released 3 volumes of The Executioner's Last Songs that feature their renditions of a lot of the songs mentioned in this thread and others about killin', dyin', death row. . .

Vince

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 20 Jun 2007 12:33 pm

Unknown Hinson...

Marc Jenkins · Post by **Marc Jenkins** » 20 Jun 2007 2:58 pm

How could I forget?
Nick Cave's Mercy Seat, especially sung by Johnny Cash.

Yikes!

Dean Dobbins · Post by **Dean Dobbins** » 20 Jun 2007 7:56 pm

"The Chair" by Marty Robbins--talk about eerie!!!

Geoff Barnes · Post by **Geoff Barnes** » 21 Jun 2007 7:51 pm

Cool thread!
Too many to post,(so little time), a few spring to mind tho';
“Billy Austin”, Steve Earle
“Whenever kindness fails”, Robert Earl Keen
“Lubbock Woman”, Terry Allen
“Ballad of Charles Whitman”, Kinky Freedman
“Where grass won’t grow”, George Jones
”Carmelita”, Dwight Yoakum/Flaco Jiminez/Warren Zevon
Grew up watching Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live (local band)... alsmost everything he does is pretty dark....this is what happens when good Catholics go bad
Makes Leonard Cohen look like the Wiggles!:lol:

Bob Watson · Post by **Bob Watson** » 21 Jun 2007 8:36 pm

There's a Johnny Bush tune called "Cold, Cold Hands" thats pretty creepy. Its about a guy who's fiance gets killed in an auto accident along with another man that she was cheating with. Also, "I'll Get Over You When The Grass Grows Over Me", I don't think that one needs an explanation. There's a Marty Robins song, I think its called "They're Hangin' Me Tonight" that also fits in this category. Its about a cowboy who shoots his estranged girlfrind and her new boyfriend.

Brett Day · Post by **Brett Day** » 21 Jun 2007 8:56 pm

"Midnight In Montgomery" is definitely creepy because it talks about how Alan visits Hank Williams' grave on his way to Mobile, Alabama to play a show. Also, another song of Alan's that is really creepy is "Between The Devil And Me", written by Carson Chamberlain, who was Keith Whitley's steel player. It's got some awesome steel and in the second verse, the steel almost screams.

Brett

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 21 Jun 2007 9:02 pm

A couple more Paycheck songs: EDIT: just went back and saw this one was already mentioned--"The Cave", about nuclear holocaust (with maybe the most off-the-wall steel lick of Lloyd Green's career), and "The Ballad of Frisco Bay", about drowning while trying to escape from Alcatraz (where the protagonist was doing life because he took the rap for a murder committed by his wife).

Dayna Wills · Post by **Dayna Wills** » 21 Jun 2007 10:19 pm

Bud,
Johnny Bush did a real nice rendition of "They're hangin me tonight".
DW

Joe Butcher · Post by **Joe Butcher** » 22 Jun 2007 5:24 pm

Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine creeps me out big time, as does that song that says "I love little baby ducks."