- Oh yeah, these songs just get weirder and weirder.
♫ If the rain comes
♫ They run and hide their head
(creepy music)
Foster the People had their first hit
with Pumped Up Kicks back in 2010.
Despite the music being upbeat,
the song is actually way darker than it seems.
Believe it or not, this song is actually written
from the perspective of a troubled teen
that is thinking about carrying out a school shooting.
And chances are you've sung along to the lines
"Better run, better run, faster than my bullet,"
but not thought much of it.
The song itself is about status symbols
like pumped-up kicks, the isolation kids feel,
and a warning to enemies that they better outrun my gun.
And if that wasn't enough, Foster's bassist, Cubby Fink,
actually had a cousin who survived the Columbine shooting
in April of 1999.
The band's front man, Mark Foster, wrote the song
in five hours while working on a commercial jingle
and had been watching CNN and hearing about a growing trend
in mental illness in teens.
Foster himself had been bullied as a kid
and wanted to try and understand that mindset
and youth gun violence in America,
and hence the song was born.
I Don't Like Mondays was released in 1979
and was a huge hit for the Irish band the Boomtown Rats.
The band's lead singer,
legendary rock star and activist Bob Geldof, wrote the song.
Lyrics like, "Tell me why I don't like Mondays,"
and, "I want to shoot the whole day down,"
may sound like normal early morning complaints,
I know I've had a few,
but Geldof was actually inspired by a mass shooting.
On the morning of January 29th, 1979,
16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer
opened fire on Grover Cleveland Elementary School
in San Diego, California.
Spencer lived across the street from the school
and fired 30 rounds of ammunition
at the children who were waiting at the school gates.
The school's principal, Burton Wragg,
and the custodian, Mike Suchar, were killed
and eight children and a police officer were injured.
And when she was asked why she committed the crime,
she simply said, "I don't like Mondays.
"This livens up the day."
If you thought that was creepy, keep watching;
it gets weirder.
Slayer was formed in Huntington Park, California, in 1981
and is one of the most iconic metal bands in history,
and they're no strangers to satanic imagery.
When it comes to the devil, these guys do not hold back.
And their second album, Hell Awaits, was no exception.
Released in 1985, the year of my birth, (party horn honking)
it included the tracks Kill Again, At Dawn They Sleep,
Praise of Death, and Necrophiliac. (gagging)
But what really sets Slayer and this album apart
was the use of back-masking
to hide a creepy message for listeners.
At the beginning of the album, when played in reverse,
the ominous and inviting phrase, "Join us,"
is repeated in a demonic voice.
♫ Join us, join us, join us, join us, join us
If critics were on the fence about Slayer,
this sealed the deal
that these guys had made a deal with the devil.
They've even had the honor of being called
the most threatening, subversive band on the planet
by the music critic and founder
of the heavy metal magazine Kerrang!, Jeff Barton.
During the 1970s, back-masking subliminal messages
into music became a pretty big deal.
Music fans who looked for these hidden messages
became known as hunters.
The Pink Floyd song Empty Spaces
was released in 1979 as one of the tracks
on their conceptual rock opera album, the Wall.
And hidden just before the lyrical portion,
the band's co-founder, Roger Waters,
says, "Hello, congratulations.
"You have just discovered the secret message.
"Please send your answer to Old Pink,
"care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont."
- [Roger] Congratulations.
You have just discovered the secret message.
Please send your answer to Old Pink,
care of the funny farm, Chalfont.
- Now, this might just sound like a silly message
except Old Pink refers to the band's character
named Pink Floyd, who eventually goes insane
and also refers to the former member, Syd Barrett,
who suffered from severe mental illness,
likely schizophrenia, before being sent to a funny farm,
a less-than-politically correct term
for a psychiatric hospital,
and eventually had to leave the band.
James Blunt's 2004 song, You're Beautiful,
may seem like one of the best love songs in recent years,
but it turns out not so much.
It became a huge hit because, really,
what's better than seeing the face of an angel
and repeatedly telling her she's beautiful
while also being bittersweet that you'll never be together?
Well, listen closely and you'll realize
he's actually stoned out of his mind
and creeping on some poor woman.
The song is basically about him spotting a girl on a train
and thinking that she's hot.
And even though she's with someone else,
he just keeps staring at her.
Like every creep on the bus, you avoid it at all costs.
This would've been more obvious
if the radio version didn't change the line,
"I was F-ing high," to, "I was flying high."
I'm guessing that the smile she flashes for him
is more out of fear and pity than a real special moment.
Lead singer of Nirvana Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994
was a tragic end to a brilliant musician
and made him one of the most notorious members
of the doomed 27 Club.
The band's second album, Nevermind,
featured some of their best-known songs,
like Smells Like Teen Spirit,
but it also had a quieter track called Polly.
The lyrics are vague and it seems like
they may have had a deeper meaning
than what on the surface sounds like
a guy feeding crackers to his pet bird named Polly.
The truth is Cobain was inspired to write the song
when he read a newspaper article about the kidnapping, rape,
and torture of a 14-year-old girl in June of 1987
by Gerald Arthur Friend.
Friend was a serial rapist from Lakewood, Washington,
who abducted the girl
when she accepted a ride home from him after a concert.
The creepy thing is that the song was written
from Friend's perspective,
who had tied the girl up in his mobile home
before she escaped.
The heavy metal band Motorhead was formed in 1975
in London, England, and has been recognized
as bringing the British metal scene
back to life in the 1980s.
In 1991, the band released their ninth studio album, 1916,
featuring the track Nightmare/The Dreamtime.
If you listen carefully throughout the song,
you can hear a bunch of random words,
except when they're put together, which says,
"Now tell me about your miserable little lives.
"I do not subscribe to your superstitious,
"narrow minded flights of paranoia.
"I and people like me will always prevail.
"You will never stifle our free speech
"in any country in the world 'cause we will fight forever.
"In a single stroke, you poor, stupid, running dogs.
"Why is it?"
Now, there's speculation that it was meant for
the Parents Music Resource Center,
who at the time were trying to censor rock music
because they believed it was the devil's music
and sending kids subliminal messages, which is ironic
because this was sending a subliminal message,
but you get the point.
A vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer
that was used to create Secrets of Wysteria.
The song was written for Halloween
and uses the vocaloid Oliver, who sounds like a young boy
and gives the whole thing a creepy vibe.
But Steampianist, the song's co-producer,
had also filled the songs with riddles which,
when deciphered, would reveal who the song was really about.
And that is the serial killer and cannibal Albert Fish.
He was born in 1870 in Washington, DC,
and was nicknamed the Werewolf of Wysteria
because it was Wysteria Cottage
where he'd commit his crimes.
He's known to have killed at least three children,
but was suspected of killing at least five more.
But what makes Secrets of Wysteria even more disturbing
is that when played in reverse,
the eerie voice of a man reads out the horrific letter Fish,
who had been left to babysit Grace, had sent to her parents,
detailing how he killed and ate their daughter.
- I choked her death then cut her in small pieces
so I could take my meat to my rooms, cook and eat it.
How sweet and tender.
- Perhaps one of the most well-known earworms of all time
is Eiffel 65's Blue (Da Ba Dee).
The electropop band from Italy released the song in 1999
and, for reasons unknown,
it became a huge hit around the world.
It even got a Grammy nomination for best dance recording.
The song is apparently about a blue man in a blue world,
but part of what made the song so popular
was that no one could figure out
what they heck they were saying in the chorus.
A popular interpretation was that
the "Da ba dee, da ba da," lyrics
was actually, "I will bleed, I will die,"
or, "I believe I will die,"
which was just creepy on its own.
♫ Da ba dee da ba daa
But this catchy pop song may be hiding
something even more sinister.
When the chorus is played backwards,
what originally sounds like gibberish
actually sounds a lot like "Hide the body, eat the body."
Now, I can't say for sure,
but I know I will never trust a blue man again.
I'm looking at you, Blue Man Group.
Y'all creepy.
Rap artist Desiigner's song Tiimmy Turner
was certified platinum
and was even on Rolling Stone's 50 Best Songs of 2016 list.
The song's title is a reference to the Nickelodeon kids show
Fairly OddParents and the character Timmy Turner.
Now, this may give the impression that it should be
just as cartoonish and fun as the show,
but that's not really the case at all.
Desiigner himself has said that he sees
the Timmy Turner character as his alter ego
and that the track is about his desire
to get a hit single and be famous.
But it's also a cautionary tale.
Like making a deal with the devil,
you might get what you ask for,
but you may also end up in Hell for it.
But that's not all that's hidden in the track.
When played in reverse, it sounds like Desiigner is saying,
"Fall slowly, do you know where hell is,"
and, "Come feast with me; you know, 666."
This has led many to believe
that Desiigner has become a member
of a secret ruling society known as the Illuminati.
But hey, that's up for you to decide.
Thank you so much for watching,
and just a reminder that my brand new
limited edition T-shirt is only available
for a few more days until June 5th.
And once they're gone, they're gone forever,
so make sure you pick up yours now before they sell out
by clicking the little I on your screen right now
or the link under this video.
And don't forget, I'll have a brand new video for you
tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern Standard Time,
so make sure you come by then.
Have a great day.