I'll be playing alt-country pedal steel tonight (7/3) in Philly at the Tritone with Pete Marshall and the Broken Prayers. I can guarantee Pcycho Killer will be one of our songs, along with a bunch more dark minor key songs. Also on the bill will be Big Lazy from Brooklyn, who play demented experimental stuff.
Straight scoop from Leon Paynes Daughter re. the inspiration for "Psycho".
Hi, this is Myrtie Le Payne, Leon Payne’s daughter. Daddy did not write Psycho after Whitman’s rampage. He did write “Selfishness In Man” after the shootings.
Daddy wrote Psycho after we had gone to the movies and I explained the head rolling down the staircase in a scene of an Alfred Hitchcock movie
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 11:20PM | Myrtie Le Payne
Stephen Gregory wrote:Straight scoop from Leon Paynes Daughter re. the inspiration for "Psycho".
Hi, this is Myrtie Le Payne, Leon Payne’s daughter. Daddy did not write Psycho after Whitman’s rampage. He did write “Selfishness In Man” after the shootings.
Daddy wrote Psycho after we had gone to the movies and I explained the head rolling down the staircase in a scene of an Alfred Hitchcock movie
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 11:20PM | Myrtie Le Payne
Thanks for that Stephen,
Every thing I've read says he wrote it after the Whitman incident, but it never made sense because that was in the middle of '66 and the copyright date on Psycho is '69.
I would be more incline to believe His daughter than some Internet blog or Psycho-billy rag.
Porter Wagoner's Committed to Parkview is hands down the creepiest song I've ever heard.. but it's real country, and I dig it.
I really like murder ballads. I saw Charlie Louvin sing Knoxville Girl last month. He played at the club I work at. It was such an honor. Another favorite murder ballad of mine is Herb Pedersen's version of Willow Garden on his Lonesome Feeling album, but when Herb sings it so beautifully, it sounds very sweet.
Dicky Overbey's recording of "Lying There In The Deepening Snow" is a tearful rendition of a family torn apart. His steel speaks of the sadness. It's a must for all steel players who are sensitive to the steel guitar's full potential.
Tanya Tucker's "That Georgia Sun Was Blood Red and Going Down" (I'm not sure that's the exact title) is another creepy one. The daddy takes his young daughter with him as he hunts down his cheating wife and her lover. He finds them in a bar and the daughter watches in horror as "Daddy left 'em both soakin' up the sawdust on the floor".
I agree with Greg on "I Just Can't Let You Say Good-bye," but I still think the creepiest country song has to be b0b's original suggestion "The Cold Hard Facts of Life." Porter's the man. Also Paycheck's "Pardon Me I've Got Someone To Kill." That makes me want to drink. "Knoxville Girl." Funny how when you add a banjo, it ain't so creepy anymore?!?
I am surprised no one has mentioned "the Drunken Driver" by Simon Crumm Alias Ferlin Huskey.
It was Banned from the radio in the UK.
If it was aired now there may be fewer drunken drivers.
Billy
Ima throw one of mine in........
(think medium tempo shuffe)
"I brought these pretty flowers home to you, One for every time you've been untrue;
I placed them in your hand, and took off that bloody band,
Tonight I brought you flowers one last time."
Jody Cameron mentioned one I remember from years ago, but it wasn't Paycheck... it was Bobby Helms singing "He Said He Thought He'd Die Laughing... And He Did." Song about the common theme of soon-to-be-dead guy bragging about tapping some woman, not knowing her husband was who he was bragging to.
Also the line in Willie Nelson's "Opportunity To Cry," where he sings "I don't know whether to kiss you... or kill you on sight."
My rig: Infinity and Telonics.
Son, we live in a world with walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with steel guitars. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg?
Proud to know ... "I guess" that I've heard most of these. There seems to be an ample supply of outside songs. Remember "Crash On the Highway" by Roy Acuff or how about "Me And My Uncle"