The Beatles (band)/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Please don't be long
Please don't you be very long...
For I may be asleep.

  • "Can you take me back where I came from, can you take me back?" The song has a very unsettling feel and Paul sounds like he's desperate for help.
  • Two instances on "A Day in the Life": The deranged string crescendo, which qualifies as a Middle Note Nightmare, and the creepy looping voices at the very, very end of the song, which qualify as a "secret" Last-Note Nightmare.
    • Technically, those looping voices are in a secret track - the "Inner Groove." "A Day in the Life" ends with very faded piano and ambient air conditioning. Which are still Last-Note Nightmare.
  • The Beatles' White Album, potentially made even scarier by reading the lyrics to "Helter Skelter". The album is infamous for being associated with Charles Manson.
  • Those "electronic seagulls" on "Tomorrow Never Knows". It's a heavily distorted clip of Paul laughing.
    • It's not just the "seagulls" that are terrifying: the distorted quality of John's voice, occurrences of percussive sounds played backwards, and the sound of tape being looped rapidly through a tape recorder add to this song's freakishness.
  • John's undistorted laughter near the end of "Hey Bulldog".
  • For me, it's the discovery that John was actually chanting "Shoot me" in the background of the song "Come Together" (according to Bob Spitz's biography) - Paul was supposedly so disturbed by it that he covered up the end of the phrase with a loud cymbal hit, so that it sounds like "shooook!"
  • The sound loops at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" always creep this troper out.
    • This troper is creeped out by the whole song, from Lennon's distorted voice to the funereal brass to the backwards cymbals that sound like a shovel digging a grave, not to mention the Last-Note Nightmare. The acoustic version in the Anthology is beautiful, though.
    • "Strawberry Fields Forever" could be deeply disturbing to some. The way it fades out and fades back in at the end...
    • And the added bonus of John's distorted voice bellowing, "CRANBERRY SAUCE." which could also be interpreted as "I BURIED PAUL." if you subscribe to the Paul Is Dead conspiracy theory.
  • The version of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" on LOVE proceeds as normal for about a minute and a half, right up until the line "And tonight Mr. Kite is topping the bill!", at which point it segues not into the circus music you're expecting, but rather the riff from "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", with various sounds - including the vocals from "Helter Skelter" - laced through it. Also a major case of Mood Whiplash.
  • How about the ending of "Long, Long, Long" when everything starts shaking and rattling and George starts howling into the night?
  • "Cry Baby Cry", where Lennon sings about "seances in the dark" and a group of children that are always mentioned, but never seen, make one's imagination fear the worst about their fate. Where are they? Are they still alive?
  • "Run For Your Life," despite its pleasant jangly sound, is about a man threatening to murder his girlfriend if she is unfaithful.
  • Don't forget the cacophonic instrumental in "A Day in the Life". Plus that weird babbling at the end of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band; it's the Beatles punishing anyone who forgot to take the needle off of the record. It's in the playout groove, so until the needle's taken off, it plays endlessly. Now it's just a last touch on the CD.
    • Another Nightmare Fuel factor for "A Day in the Life" that isn't talked about as much has to be John Lennon's singing. It's not necessarily what he's singing about, but how he's singing it. Something about his voice just doesn't seem right in that song...
    • The transition from quiet conversation (...with a dog) to a burst of deranged laughter in "Hey Bulldog" is really quite disturbing.
  • And the way "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" just cuts off abruptly should count as well.
  • "I got blisters on mah fingers" at the end of "Helter Skelter" has an unsettling, deranged quality.
    • After listening to the strings fade out on "The End" in Abbey Road, you sit there letting the musical food digest in your brain. All is quiet, until DUNNNN! Her Majesty, ladies and gentlemen. Of course, this is a subversion, since Her Majesty turns out to be a cheerful little ditty.
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