Music Monday is a series where I, you know, occasionally talk about old music. On a Monday.

We don’t get enough horror in music anymore.

No, I’m not talking about the horror of a reforming boy band or even the kind of gore show that some bands put on. I’m talking about the genuinely creepy songs that seem to be the products of truly deranged minds.

Admittedly, back in the 1970s, there seemed to be an awful lot of deranged minds out there making music (possibly due to all the more interesting drugs). Take dear old Arthur Brown or Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull*, for example. These days, how often do you get musicians appearing as deranged as Arthur getting pop hits? Not often enough, I say!

But despite the abundance of deranged musicians, the person who was synonymous with the creepy horror song was Alice Cooper (although none of his songs was quite as horrific as the fact that he has morphed into a golfing Republican in later life). Most people know some of his more popular hits like School’s Out, I’m Eighteen and Poison, his more creepy stuff is a little less well-known.

Perhaps his most epic contribution comes in the form of the trio of songs Years Ago / Steven / The Awakening:

* Disclaimer…

I have no idea whether Mr. Brown ever took any drugs of any type, and I’m pretty sure Ian Anderson never did. But here is Arthur Brown with his best-known song, Fire:

Judge for yourselves…

And here is Jethro Tull with The Witch’s Promise: