be confused with Sting’s more gentle song of the same name). I can’t begin to describe the oddness of the Manhattan being sung about here; all I can say is, get on board and fasten your seat belts.
Devoted collectors of paraphernalia out walking the rock
Battle and bitch for the ultimate kitsch of a crucifix clock
Two miniature Romans, running on rails
Appear every hour and bang in the nails
I’ve got to have it, Christ, I gotta be the first on our block
And if you find a crucifix clock, I’d love to have it for my office...
There are probably hundreds or even thousands of other pop songs that fit into the weird straitjacket, but in our remaining space, we should acknowledge the debt that musical weirdness owes to the past. And not just the recent past, either, though Robert Johnson wrote some impressively weird blues songs in the 1930s, most of which have been covered by modern musicians (“Crossroads” by Cream and “Me and the Devil Blues” by Eric Clapton); the nineteenth-century folk and field song “In the Pines” was covered by Nirvana during that band’s 1993 “Unplugged” appearance on MTV.
The cornerstone of all popular weird music, though, is the folk music of the British Isles, as written down in the late nineteenth century by the indefatigable Francis James Child. There are 305 songs in Child’s collection, and at least a tenth of those are supernatural in content.
And most of these have been recorded within my memory. There was an electric folk revival in the UK in the late sixties and early seventies, and bands such as Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Pentangle, and their various spin-offs seem to have left no Child behind. The coverage continues today, with contemporary groups like Coyote Run and Great Big Sea helping themselves to the mother lode.
Most of the Child ballads are fairly obvious in their weirdness. “The Two Magicians” is an escape song, with one of the magicians shape-shifting to get away from the other, who counters with an appropriate shift of his (or her) own. What makes some versions of this more interesting than others is the nature of the chase: somehow it’s more impressive when the blacksmith is chasing the maiden than it is when the master magician is chasing his apprentice. For a (much) darker version of this song, check out “Oh Coal Black Smith” by Current 93; my own preference is for the deceptively cheerful version by Steeleye Span.
Speaking of the Span (my favourite group of any folk revival), their “Allison Gross” is close to being a perfect example of the weirdness of the Child Ballads. It starts off simply, both lyrically and in terms of its arrangement, and the music becomes more raucous and intense as the lyrics turn into the dark side of the Beauty and the Beast legend.
“Tam Lin” has similar themes of transformation caused by a supernatural creature (the Queen of Faerie in this case). If you want a more raucous, modern-Celtic version of the song, look for the version by Coyote Run (from Between Wick and Flame); if your preference is to the more ethereal, listen to Mediaeval Baebes (from Mirabilis). Or listen to both and keep reminding yourself that it’s the same song.
Two songs inspired this article. The first, “White Winter Hymnal,” I’ve already discussed. The second is a Child Ballad and so the mother, in a sense, of the first. I know it as “The Cruel Sister,” though Child called it “The Twa Sisters” and it has several other names besides. The first version I ever heard (and hence the best, because that’s how our minds work) is by Pentangle, from their 1970 album of the same name. The album may have been a flop, but this performance of “Cruel Sister” isn’t. Jacqui McShee’s voice is crystal-clear but sounds almost numb in her deadpan telling of this tale of murder and supernatural revenge, and the addition of a sitar adds a hint of disturbance or disconnect to what is otherwise a fairly straightforward (at least for this band) folk-style rendition of the song.
What makes “The Cruel Sister” the perfect example of the weird in music, though, is the device by which the murdered sister obtains her revenge. That the woman’s body itself becomes the instrument—in a literal sense—of her killer’s undoing is creepy and marvelous and wondrous in the best sense of that word.
My senses have been assaulted delightfully during the writing of this piece, and I trust that this sampling, limited as it is, will provide you with sufficient inspiration to assemble your own collection of the weird. What I’ve listed here will at least make an entertaining mix-tape or shuffle list for anyone with an interest in the subject. As a matter of fact, I’ve been assembling just such a shuffle playlist in the writing of this article. I’m not quite finished yet, though. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some more shopping to do.
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Michael Skeet is an award-winning Canadian writer and broadcaster who began writing for radio before finishing college. In addition to extensive publishing credits as a film and music critic, he writes short sf/f/h and is a two-time winner of Canada’s Aurora Award for excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
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