The 10 most disturbing rock songs of all time

Some of the best songs of all time have the ability to make the listener’s hair stand on end. Even though it might be hard to put feelings into words, each of these artists brought out a piece of their soul in songs that made every listener identify with the message at the heart of its creation. Then again, there are also a handful of songs by The Cure and Nine Inch Nails where hairs stand on end for a completely different reason.

Although some of the tracks listed below have strong melodies behind them, there are dark backstories underneath the music. Whether being pulled from personal experience or a horror story that happened close to the band, each of these songs refuses to shy away from morbid topics.

Aside from the subject matter, the music tends to follow the lyrics on these tracks a lot of the time, either staying in that sour mood or getting more and more unhinged as the track plays on. Some of the most disturbing on this list come when the music is flipped around, putting some of the happiest music behind songs that had the potential to emotionally destroy the listener.

While some of these songs may be enjoyable to listen to out of context, listeners are in for a new experience when they decide to pull up some of the lyrics to these tunes. There are definitely some highlights here, but some of these songs can leave people with scars if they’re not careful.

10 most disturbing rock songs of all time:

‘Lullaby’ – The Cure

By the standards of goth music, The Cure seemed to be the most approachable band in the genre. While Robert Smith may have laid his eyeliner on pretty thick for his music videos, earnest love songs like ‘Just Like Heaven’ soothed the troubled side of the soul. As Smith entered the 1990s, he saved a deep cut for the fans on ‘Lullaby’, featuring a scenario ripped out of nightmares.

Although the idea of Spider-Man coming to the rescue sounds like an encouraging thought, Smith is picturing a different stripe of arachnid, as this creature skulks over the bed and slowly works his way into the room before consuming him whole. Smith’s calming words of ‘don’t struggle’ just add an extra layer of menace onto the track as well.

The music video follows suit, with every band member being decked out in military garb that has seen better days, as the strings sound like they’re being plucked by the web this Spider-Man is creating. Marvel fans have shouted his praises for years, but if Peter Parker approached his victims like this, no one would want to be saved.

‘One’ – Metallica

Metal music was never intended to hold the listener’s hand through the song. Every one of these tracks was meant to be dirty and would often veer towards the darker side of life. Although Metallica were never the most lyrical band in the thrash genre, ‘One’ has a story that’s a lot closer to reality than some would want to admit.

Inspired by the book Johnny Got His Gun, James Hetfield paints a grim picture of someone at death’s door, in critical condition after losing his body to a landmine on the battlefield. Although death might be the best thing for the protagonist, he’s trapped within his own mind, unable to speak to his doctors to cut him off from life support.

As the song plays out, the tone goes from sad to panic, as the listener is placed into the man’s perspective, being trapped inside of his own mind and having no way to escape. While this scenario is normally saved for nightmares, this is a bad dream that the titular Johnny will never truly wake up from.

’97 Bonnie and Clyde’ – Tori Amos

The old era of Eminem always had a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour to it. Although the songs would have a macabre twist to them, it always felt like listening to an adult version of a Saturday morning cartoon. When those lyrics are put in the hands of Tori Amos, she made something that belongs in an old-fashioned horror movie.

In the Marshall Mathers original, ‘97 Bonnie and Clyde’ was about Slim Shady taking his daughter Hailey for a drive, only to find out that her mother has been killed and he’s disposing of her body. Already a pretty disturbing scene, but Amos takes it to the next level, adding complex string arrangements that sound like she’s trying to conjure up hell on Earth through her piano.

There might have already been a vicious slant to Eminem’s version, but Tori Amos was able to capture something that Em couldn’t do just yet: bring depth to the story. Whereas there was always a slightly maniacal tone to the hip-hop staple, this is the first time the audience hears these lyrics as if they were being sung by a psychopath.

‘The End’ – The Doors

At the start of ‘The Summer of Love’, it felt like nothing could go wrong. As much as people wanted to tune in and drop out, though, the Vietnam war still raged in the background, bringing violence and death into the picture. While the hippies may have rallied against this kind of carnage, The Doors harnessed that torture into a musical form on ‘The End’.

Although the original idea for this song was a sad breakup tune, Jim Morrison took it to a different place when he started to expand it beyond its single verse. Running at 11 minutes, the second act of the song is the moment Morrison is free to recite poetry, rattling off some of the most psychotic things inside his head, from paying tribute to California on “the West is the best” to comparing the Flower Generation to a “Romance wilderness of pain”.

The dark streak climaxes in the final moments of his rant, where he channels Oedipus Rex and screams about wanting to kill his father and do….something with his mother. This might be one of The Doors’ finest hours, but when it comes to depicting the horrors of war and the pain of the ‘60s generation, ‘The End’’s inclusion in Apocalypse Now only enforced the demented soul at the centre of the band.

‘Black Sabbath’ – Black Sabbath

Part of the reason why Black Sabbath wanted to get into the music business was to scare people. Although they had their roots in the blues rock scene, it was Ozzy Osbourne who had suggested making scary music to accompany their hard rock sound. While they had worked on their own tunes like ‘Wicked World’ in the past, it wasn’t until their namesake track that they hit on something guttural.

Inspired by Geezer Butler’s experience in the occult, the lyrics came to him when he spent a night reading books on Satanism, after which a mysterious figure in black appeared at the foot of his bed. After burning all of his reading material, Sabbath had the perfect inspiration for their new song, as Osbourne screams like he’s about to be pulled down into the depths of hell at any moment.

Despite the maniacal nature of the lyrics, the real demented part of the tune is Tony Iommi’s guitar lick, holding on to the dreaded tritone to give a sense of foreboding doom to the track whenever he played it. Although the song might not have been the most radio-friendly, this signalled the birth of heavy metal by suggesting what could happen if those blues legends actually did sell their souls to the devil.

‘Polly’ – Nirvana

From day one, Kurt Cobain was a proud feminist. In the liner notes of their B-sides album Incesticide, Cobain went encouraged any misogynistic fans of theirs to stop buying their records. For all the vitriol Cobain had in his soul for them, ‘Polly’ was his first experiment inhabiting a misogynistic character in one of his tunes.

While Nirvana were never primarily a lyrical band, Cobain wrote this song from a headline he had heard about around the same time, centred around a girl who was able to escape getting sexually assaulted by pretending to flirt with her captor. Taken aback by the story, Cobain wrote this song from the perspective of the torturer, as he talks about tying her up and her asking for some water to put out the blowtorch he has on her.

By the time Polly escapes, all the narrator can do is feign indifference, almost like he didn’t care if she left either way. As much as the song ended well, the horror comes with how nonchalant Cobain’s delivery is. There’s a dark and demented story being told with every word, but for this sociopath, chances are this could just be another Tuesday for him.

‘Closer’ – Nine Inch Nails

There’s a strong case to be made for including every song on Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral on this list. Throughout the record, Trent Reznor explores the darkest corners of his mind through the ‘Mr. Self Destruct’ character, culminating in him wanting to end his own life by the end of the record. Although his self-destructive side of him may take top priority, ‘Closer’ is one of the least sexy ever written about intimacy.

As the listener comes down from his takedown of religion on ‘Heresy’, this song feels like walking into a demented S&M dungeon, as Reznor talks about all the things he wants to do to the listener by the end of the song. For all of the twisted parts of this song, the worst part is that it’s so catchy, especially when Reznor talks about wanting to fuck this person like an animal to achieve some sort of spiritual elation.

While this might have been the least likely song to be a hit, ‘Closer’ remained a staple of Nine Inch Nails’ set for decades, keeping with the slinky groove even when Reznor is channelling the filthiest side of his personality. There have been countless rock songs revolving around sex, but a casual listen to this song might make the listener want to reclaim their virginity.

‘Jeremy’ – Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam were the only act from the grunge scene looking to write outside of themselves. While lyricists like Layne Staley and Kurt Cobain were pulling from their personal feelings, Eddie Vedder was looking to tell stories about everyday people like the warped family at the heart of ‘Daughter’. Right in the middle of their smash debut Ten, ‘Jeremy’ had ties in the real world.

Inspired by a news story that came out when they were recording, Jeremy Wade Delle was a depressed kid who brought a gun to school and took his own life in front of his classmates. Instead of condoning his actions, Vedder takes the outsider’s perspective, almost an acquaintance of Jeremy who had picked on him a little bit and was shattered by what had happened.

The video didn’t pull any punches either and had to be censored on MTV because it showed footage of an actor portraying Jeremy sticking a firearm in his mouth. As much as Vedder might sing about trying to erase Jeremy’s death from his memory, some of those scars are never truly going to go away.

‘Frankie Teardrop’ – Suicide

In the early days of electronic music, synthesisers were meant to sound a little bit scary. Although acts like Duran Duran turned the synths into the sound of ‘80s pop, the very beginnings of the genre made them sound like they were coming from either the deepest depths of space or deep down in the crypt. So it was only a matter of time before a band like Suicide made a song that could pass as its own horror movie.

Taking a good portion of their debut album, ‘Frankie Teardrop’ is a song about a man down on his luck, having lost his job and having to come home to a wife and child that he can’t support. In a stupor, Frankie is convinced that there’s no way out of his depression, killing his wife and child before realising what he’s done and turning the gun on himself.

Despite its dark connotations, this song became influential for many songwriters around this time, with Bruce Springsteen calling it one of his favourites because of how well it depicted that frightening scenario. ‘Frankie Teardrop’ definitely has a world of its own in between those chilling synth chords, but any chances of listening to this song in the middle of the night should be avoided at all costs.

‘Iowa’ – Slipknot

When asked about the sessions for the album Iowa, no member of Slipknot has anything nice to say. After making one of the biggest splashes in metal music, these nine transplants from Iowa channelled all of their frustration on their second record, being candid about how much they were slipping into the throes of addiction. Any song on here has the potential to peel the skin from the flesh, but Corey Taylor was ready to do it to himself for the title track.

Running over ten minutes, this entire song revolves around Taylor spending time with a corpse and getting far too intimate than anyone should get with a dead body. While the premise of the song is already wild, Taylor put an even darker spin when he recorded, stripping himself naked and singing the song while cutting himself with broken glass in the studio.

To this day, Slipknot has hardly ever performed the song live due to how disturbing it is, with Taylor eventually having to be cleaned up and rest for a few days after completing the song in the studio. Then again, if Taylor were to try to channel the same energy as the original recording, chances are he wouldn’t be alive today to tell the tale.

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