Okay I’ll admit I’ve entertained a long held fascination with serial killers. I don’t admire them, don’t want to marry one, but I’ve always been intrigued by that notion of the twisted genius who is just wired wrong. The psycho who breaks the moral code, exceeds the boundaries and pushes the envelope out beyond the societal limits of morality. To me, they are twisted artists, and the mutilated bodies they leave behind for the authorities to discover are their canvas. It’s their way of screaming out to the world ‘I exist’. I get a forbidden thrill reading about their awful crimes and have done since the first time I came across the writings of the late great Colin Wilson. Just as I enjoy hearing of their cat and mouse game and the clues they leave behind until their eventual undoing by the authorities.

I’m the kind of guy that when they had that segment on the television show ’Spics n Specs’ – musician or serial killer, I not only guessed the serial killer every time, but could also tell you their name, their pseudonym, and the period they operated in.

With that in mind, it occurred to me to draw up a list of the best or most interesting serial killer songs. Music to kill by, if you like. However, in doing so, I wanted to eschew the obvious. No eulogies by death metal bands, of which I’m sure there are many. No these have to be thoughtful and artfully penned tunes. The sick little numbers that quietly burrow under your skin and fester like a pustule, suddenly erupting and weeping as you realise just what the artist is actually singing about.

Some caveats before I begin. No spree killers (sorry Foster the People and Pumped Up Kicks) or solitary victim obsessives (as much as I love Warren Zevon and his Excitable Boy). No song titles that name drop serial killers but are actually about something else (Nick Cave’s Jack the Ripper).

So without further ado, let us begin, all killer, no filler, in no particular order, like a disorganised serial killer (shout out to John Douglas, Robert Ressler and the FBI). I’m not posting links to these songs. You can seek them out and listen at your leisure. Listed by song title then artist.

Object – Ween

Oh man I love this song. Dean and Gene Ween, for a long time I thought those were their real names. This is from the 2007 album, La Cucaracha. They penned some beautifully strange tunes and they knocked it out of the park with this one. Really cold, and that last refrain is killer – ‘I feel a little better, they found your sweater… you’re just an object to me.’ Perfect example of a serial killer tune that just creeps up on you and sinks its hooks into your flesh. This one gives me chills. Somehow he manages to convey total sociopathy in his tone, and totally captures that classic serial killer internal dilemma of the urge being so tangibly painful that it can only be temporarily assuaged by acting out the impulse, until the pressure starts to build again.

Lotion – Greenskeepers

Dang! I always thought these guys were Australian for some reason, but they’re from Chicago. Don’t know much about them, except for this song, which got a lot of airplay on JJJ radio about twelve years ago. Incredibly joyful and catchy backbeat on this tune, which makes you laugh at how wrong the lyrics are. Nothing deep and meaningful in the lyrics, they are repetitive, and an obvious almost word for word tribute to the fictional serial killer Buffalo Bill in the 1991 film, Silence of the Lambs. Put the lotion in the fucking basket, bitch…

Midnight Rambler – Rolling Stones

One of my favourite Stones songs of all time, along with Sympathy for the Devil. Just a killer blues number, regardless of the lyrics and subject matter. Great harmonica work. It eulogises Albert De Salvo, who may or indeed may not have been the infamous Boston Strangler. It’s rather a violent song, and it came out in 1969 at a time of social upheaval, with the Vietnam War in full swing and Charlie Manson prowling around in the background spreading his muse over everything. Then there’s that break in the middle when you think it’s done, but it rolls back in again in waves, building up to a crescendo. Definitely one of their best.

Psycho Killer – Talking Heads

Great song from a great band who excelled across so many genres of music. This one was their first hit, circa 1977. Best summed up as the random inner thought processes of a serial killer. Doesn’t reference any particular killer. The band came out of New York, so they had a few to choose from. It did however, gain release at the exact same time that the Son of Sam was terrorizing New York City.

Deep Red Bells – Niko Case

I had never heard this one before. Recommended by a colleague. From her 2002 album Blacklisted, it references Tacoma serial killer Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. Case grew up in the Washington area where this series of murders occurred between 1982 and 2001. She has a great voice, and this is a mournful tune. Ridgway is arguably the most prolific serial killer in US history with 48 confirmed murders and possibly double that number according to his unconfirmed confessions. Victims were mostly prostitutes or runaways, always vulnerable women. Not a nice man. She has captured the essence of the vulnerability of the victims in the lyrics – ‘tastes like being poor and small’ – ‘does your soul cast about like an old paper bag, past empty lots and early graves?’ Quite moving. She speaks on behalf of the powerless victims and restores their humanity. Somebody cared about each of them, even if the authorities didn’t care enough about them to stop this guy.

In Germany before the War – Randy Newman

This one is a hidden classic. I know Randy Newman has been around for ever and is known to be a bit eccentric, but I knew little about his work until a Canadian friend lent me an old cassette tape a few years back, and I stuck it on while driving my car. This tune came on and I suddenly thought with a jolt – mein gott! Is he singing about the Dusseldorf Ripper, Peter Kurten? Turns out he was indeed. I was quite proud of picking up on this. From the 1977 album, Little Criminals, Newman was reflecting on the 1931 Fritz Lang film, M, which was based on Kurten career as a rapist and killer of women and children. Kurten was an archetypal sex killer, he achieved orgasm while killing his victims and was turned on by the sight of blood.

John Wayne Gacy Jnr – Sufjan Stevens

Another gentle mourning eulogy, from Stevens’ 2006 album, Come on feel the Illinoise. This one reflects on the man who gave clowns an even badder name, John Wayne Gacy Jnr. The song fact check’s Gacy’s stereotypical incipient serial killer history (violent abusive father, traumatic head injury, convictions for sexual assault) and alludes to how he kept his victims’ bodies in the crawlspace under his house. Gacy sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys between 1972 and 1978. He is famous for his post-incarceration serial killer artwork, which fetches a lot of money among collectors. Executed by lethal injection in 1994, he was sometimes referred to as the killer clown. In fact anyone who doesn’t suffer from coulrophobia need only look at a picture of Gacy’s alter ego, Pogo the Clown, to pick up a lifelong fear of clowns pretty quickly.

Mack the Knife – Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht

Here’s an unusual entry, and one I certainly wouldn’t have considered myself, until a colleague pointed it out. It’s a cruisy old crooner song, its most famous iteration by Frank Sinatra (1958). Listening to the lyrics, I’m reminded of Jack the Ripper, but of course its association with Franky conjures up images of the mob. Other famous versions of this were done by Bobby Darin (1959) and Louis Armstrong (1956). Robbie Williams had a crack in 2001. Originally composed by Weill and Brecht for their Berlin based stage drama, The Threepenny Opera in 1928. In its original form it is a murder ballad performed by minstrels about a character called Mackie Messer, in turn based on the highwayman Macheath in Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), in turn based on a historical thief called Jack Sheppard (phew, thanks Wikipedia). It’s old anyway, goes way back.

Red Right Hand – Nick Cave

You can’t have a serial killer album without Nick Cave, or so I thought. Nick should be a shoe in with his career long obsession with all matters love, sex and death, yet he remains elusive. Not even on Murder Ballads can you find more than a tenuous link. I’ll return to this album. So I include this tune from 1994’s Let Love In. Who is this demonic figure in the long black coat with the red right hand that may be dipped in blood? Like the archetypal sex killer he is the embodiment of all of our darkest fears and desires. On the opening tune of Murder Ballads, Song of Joy, a man finds his family murdered at the hands of a serial killer who writes ‘Red right hand’ on the walls in their blood. The phrase itself is taken from John Milton’s Paradise Lost – the avenging hand of God. So many serial killers once caught claim to be acting on behalf of God.

Far from any Road – The Handsome Family

I only discovered this little gem recently when I purchased and watched the first season of True Detective. This tune was one of the things that drew me in, along with the great performances of the two leads. It’s from the 2003 album Singing Bones. It’s a country song, even though it’s far too good to be a country song. While the song literally references the danger presented by certain flora and fauna in the desert, its association with the series, which concerns the long term hunt for a serial killer known as the Yellow King, brings it into the zone. The layout with its duelling male and female voices and its theme of death can only lead one to associate it with sex murder – well it does for me anyway.

That’s it and boy did I have fun compiling this playlist (hitlist, slaylist). But wait, there’s more! I’ve almost got enough tracks in reserve for a follow up album – serial killer music volume II. Let’s leave that for another time.

Shout outs to some Australian Horror Writers Association members who made helpful suggestions in compiling this list – Pia Ravenari, Anthony Stevens (my doppelganger), Lyn and Lee Battersby, and Dan Russell.

Have I missed any? Have I missed one of your favourites? Let me know. Here’s the complete track listing:

1 Object – Ween

2 Lotion – Greenskeepers

3 Midnight Rambler – Rolling Stones

4 Psycho Killer – Talking Heads

5 Deep Red Bells – Neko Case

6 In Germany Before the War – Randy Newman

7 John Wayne Gacy Jnr – Sufjan Stevens

8 Mack the Knife – Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht

9 Red Right Hand – Nick Cave

10 Far from any Road – The Handsome Family