AND THE SHADOW BEHIND WALKED WITH HIM: This week’s Horror Roundtable looks at the best horror songs. How awesome. I can’t confine myself to only one; so here are ten. These are off the top of my head, without rifling through the tape/CD collection. And I’ve declared ballads (e.g. “The Twa Corbies,” “Allison Gross”) off-limits, because we’ll never get out of here otherwise. So, in no real order (except for the last, which is my favorite):

1. Delta 5, “Shadow.” Classy, glossy stalker song.

2. Young Marble Giants, “Final Day.” Not the ultimate apocalypse song–but the two contenders for that title, “99 Luftballons” and “The Man Comes Around,” aren’t really horror songs, whereas this might be. It’s subtle, creepy and whistly, a whimsical and shivery song.

3. Martin Tielli, “I’ll Never Tear You Apart.” The tiger waits/in the bushes by the lake.

4. Jane Hohenberger, “Tooth Fairy.” The only song I’ve ever seen someone cut off midplay because it was too scary. Her smooth gums gleam/with no teeth between,/Lisping, “You are mine! mine, mine mine mine….”

5. Diamanda Galas, a whole bunch of songs, including “You Must Be Certain of the Devil”; that one with the eight legs of the Devil crawling up her spine; and the one that starts, “Deep in my heart/I love you so,” which I think might be called “Tony.”

6. Dead Kennedys, “The Prey.” Heh-heh-heh.

7. Two songs quoting Blake’s “The Sick Rose”–that one from Coil (can’t remember the name…), and the Raincoats’ “Oh Oh La La La.”

8. Nina Simone, “Sinnerman.”

9. Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Gun.” I don’t know, I get a real Burroughs-Los Bros. Hernandez-SF-horror cartoony vibe from this.

10. Oh, you knew it was coming: The Cramps, “Eyeball in My Martini.” I discuss its theological implications here. (The missing line is, “What’s this burden that I bear?”)

Hmm, this list seems to veer randomly from slow-and-creepy to camp-horror. I guess I’m in that kind of mood. …And yeah, I really do love “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” too. Oh! and “Thriller,” yeah! And “The End,” and that Siouxsie song with the zombie rhumba (“Join Hands”?), and “Zombie Jamboree,” and hey why not count “I Put a Spell on You,” and and and and…. (HR link via Sean Collins.)