This Playlist Is Murder

Introduction

I had used Graham Parker's "They Murdered The Clown" in a recent Seven Days In post that you can read below, and then thought maybe I could to a Clown related playlist to share on Vocal, but just at the moment no decent Clown or Circus related songs are coming to mind apart from the Graham Parker song.

This playlist only contains five songs but there are many more out there.

My playlists seldom go beyond twelve songs and sometimes are as short as this because I don't want to bore you. Creating a playlist on an app can take seconds, thought when I started mixtapes had to be done in real time, so I usually limited myself to a C60 cassette.

Then I thought "Murder", and a few songs came to mind. Nick Cave has an album called "Murder Ballads" and someone asked the question "Is this a collection of ballads about murder or does the band just murder a selection of ballads?" which I thought was quite amusing.

So we will leap into this playlist feet first with the Graham Parker song that inspired it.

Graham Parker - "They Murdered The Clown" from "Struck By Lightning"

I do love this song because it is so full of conflicting images. Circuses are meant to be places of entertainment and clowns are meant to be funny, This is a definition of clown that I found on Google:

A fool, jester, or comedian in an entertainment (such as a play) specifically: a grotesquely dressed comedy performer in a circus. b. : a person who habitually jokes and plays the buffoon.

Then to introduce that the clown is murdered is completely at odds with the concept. I know that clowns can often be scary and some people have a phobia about them but it is still a great juxtaposition to create a brilliant song.

You can listen to more Graham Parket here in this Parker-themed playlist.

Black Francis (Frank Black) - "When They Come To Murder Me" from "Seven Fingers"

A song of finality from the former Pixie, very powerfully delivered. This could have been a Pixies song but it is a great song about someone's inevitable fate in an almost Greek tragedy.

Tom Waits - "Murder In The Red Barn" from "Bone Machine"

Tom Waits's range of music is spectacular while still remaining outside of the mainstream. "Bone Machine" looks and sounds incredibly threatening and is an amazing experience to listen to. This song is extremely sparse on instrumentation but makes you feel very uncomfortable as it describes what happened in the Red Barn.

Here is a piece that tells you my opinion of the great man with a link to a playlist of his songs.

The Smiths - "Meat Is Murder"

The title track of their eponymous album starts viciously and leaves you in no doubt about the subject before Johnny Marr's guitar sets the stage for Morrissey's words telling us that killing animals to eat is murder. A powerful song that has so many words describing the murder of animals for meals that it is likely to make you consider turning vegan if you listen to this, and I suggest you do listen to it all the way through and take notice.

PJ Harvey - "The Words That Maketh Murder" from "Let England Shake"

Anything by Polly Jean Harvey is worth listening to and seeing and hearing her with her autoharp in this video I just find mesmerising. I love the way that she manages to weave a line inspired by Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" into the coda.

Conclusion

I know this is a short playlist but there are so many songs about murder out there and you can check out a slightly longer one focusing on violent folk music here.