Mind Screw/Music: Difference between revisions

*** "Desolation Row" is child's play compared to "Changing of The Guards", "Brownsville Girl" and "Highlands", all written and recorded long after Dylan's most reputedly mind-screwy era.

* [[Leonard Cohen]]'s early songs (late 60's early 70's) top Dylan's by far!

* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqnlIR3AG7g music video] for Neo-Prog group IQ's ''Drive On'' is more than a bit odd...

** The one for ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGs8HUMow74&feature=related Promises (As The Years Go By)]'' is probably weirder...

* Many people have put forth their theories on The Eagles' "Hotel California," particularly regarding "the beast" that the residents just can't kill. Others just figure it's about a guy who does a bunch of drugs in a cheap hotel.

* [[Queen]]'s "Bohemian Rhapsody". Especially the part right after the guitar solo.

** "39" from the same album is also like this (they set off in '39, travelled for a ''year'', and ''returned'' in '39 -- [[Writers Cannot Do Math|WTF?!?!]]), unless one realises that {{spoiler|this is a [[Filk Song]], which like many folk songs is an ''allegory'' about a voyage (this one being a space voyage, so one year of ship time is 100 years of Earth time)}}. Watching the video on the DVD version of the album makes it suddenly make sense.

** Most of their other songs have quite straightforward lyrics, though.

* Most of the output of [[They Might Be Giants]] falls into this territory. Especially ''Particle Man'' and ''Doctor Worm''.

*** Enough to keep Mr, Lucassen afloat, at least. It's [[Crowning Music of Awesome|damn good music]].

* The Dropkick Murphys (!) song "State of Massachusetts" seems like a straightforward song about a single mother, until you pick up on the clues (the title being the most obvious) that the whole thing is to be taken as an allegory, at which point it becomes an incomprehensible meditation on the SJC, the academic élite, the "culture wars," television's influence on society, and Boston's place in history.

** Let's not forget "Life on Mars", which has been described as "a cross between a Broadway musical and a Salvador Dali painting." A girl leaves her house as her parents fight, goes to the movies, and then there's something about fighting sailors, corrupt cops, and Mickey Mouse.

** Heck, a lot of David Bowie is like this, and that's not even counting ''[[Labyrinth]]''.

** Special mention to African Night Fight which has an entirely new sound and parts of it are sung in a Kenyan dialect and bizarre lyrics describing some kind of fight and stuff about a baby being born silent and hardships.

** [[Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?|"Width Of A Circle".]]

** ''[[Concept Album|The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway]]'', anyone?

** A lot of the mind-screwiest stuff was never recorded (or sung). In the early days, the arrangements and effects were quite complicated and the equipment was fairly primitive, so there would often be long breaks between numbers at concerts while the technicians frantically rejigged the equipment for the next song. Peter Gabriel took to filling these gaps with mind-screwy narrative pieces which he usually made up on the spot. Some of them have been transcribed on the sleeves of early live albums and literature. ''The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway'' is basically an extended one of these, with some of the scenes set to music.

* [[The Beatles]]: "Number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine..."

** Which is nothing compared to what John Lennon said about the song later:

** Also, "I am the Walrus." Reportedly, John Lennon commented, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out," after recording it.

** All of these have the disadvantage that they [[The Walrus Was Paul|don't really give a sense of expecting to make sense]]...unlike "Eleanor Rigby," probably their most effective [[Mind Screw]].

** All three tracks on ''Close to the Edge'' are like this: they seem to make sense, but actually don't. Although "And You And I" could be interpreted as being based on [[Isaac Asimov|the Foundation trilogy]].

** Jon Anderson, frontman of Yes's collaboration with Vangelis produced ''The Friends Of Mr. Cairo''. 12 minutes of nothing but [[Mind Screw|Minds Screw]]

* Devin Townsend, a Canadian musician, has distilled this into the purest form possible with his album "Ziltoid the Omniscient". Beginning as a somewhat lighthearted tale of the titular Ziltoid invading Earth demanding coffee, it ends with {{spoiler|him questioning the state of the universe, the creator revealing that they're all 'just puppets' and it finally turning out that it's all a daydream in the mind of a coffee shop employee}}. Not even mentioning that it tends to shift from speedy metal to weirdly dissonant ambient music seemingly at random, and EVERY SINGLE VOICE on the album is the same man singing, up to and including whole choral arrangements of just his voice. {{spoiler|Oh, and he made the puppets he mentions in the story. In fact, THAT'S THE INSPIRATION FOR THE WHOLE THING.}}

** According to [[Word of God]], it's supposed to symbolize how the [[Misaimed Fandom|fandom misinterprets]] the messages of his songs.

** "Black Flame", where the only thing that's certain is that the singer has been somehow taken over by a 'black flame' that now has full control of her, feeds off her, and apparently hurts. There's a lot of weird imagery of being mouth sounds "I am words, I am speaking", "I'm just a sigh, just a crying" and in the bridge the singer is talking to someone as though she is inside them, while still telling them to try and escape.

** "Running Hard", where someone just seems to be slipping through a world of weirdo nightmare images and metaphors, and the more they try to escape or find reality, the freakier it gets.

** On the topic of DT, there's also the video for "Forsaken." [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XcWeB5oohY See for yourself.]

* A number of [[The Birthday Massacre]] videos fit this trope. For example, "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBmDgtJyc1U Blue]" and "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SREZ-ggSDjM Looking Glass]."

* Just try to figure out the plot of any [[Coheed and Cambria]] song without the comics. Especially anything from Second Stage Turbine Blade or Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Part one. Go on, I'll wait.

** Some of their songs are fairly comprehensible on their own, but others are just bizarre. Like ''Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)'', which is about a possessed, talking bicycle. For example.

** In both lyrical ''and'' musical terms, any of their collaborations with horror author [[Thomas Ligotti]], especially ''I Have A Special Plan For This World''.

* On a related note, the particular strain of [[Industrial|Post-Industrial Music]] that Current 93 emerged from is known for its mind-screwiness, with frequent collaborators Nurse With Wound and Coil quite often taking the cake.

** He named one of his relatively-later albums ''Rehearsals for Retirement''; it had [[Creator Breakdown|his own gravestone]] as the cover photo.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In3fgGPADAI It must have been the evil sausage!]

* [[The Melvins]]! How could they not have been mentioned yet? Many, many songs by them are just plain odd. Their whole style is pretty bizarre.

* The lyrics to "the Riddle" themselves are quite unclear about what they are supposed to mean, but then watch [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ehHOwmQRxU the music video to them and try to understand what's going on].

* The infamous [[Vocaloid]] PV ''Tower of Sunz''. Just try to explain [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P7uUlQOENA this] load of bull honkey. ''You can't.''

** Anything by the Vocaloid producer Hachi is almost certain to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSCnsTGuroM mess] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEeb9rOKn3Y with] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JGaQ3g8WU4 your] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZQ2tvqLgok head]. Not to menton their videos, also made by him.

** The stories are related by a theme running through the stories. The theme is that all humans search for love in any way they can. The song further exhorts us, "Don't Stop Believin'" in our chance at finding love.

* Dan Deacon's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1cA1E_BN5c Lion with a Shark's Head].

* Shortly before their first hiatus in March 1980, post-punk band [[Wire]] became especially fond of doing this to their audiences when playing live. See [[True Art Is Incomprehensible]] for details.

* The videos to 'The Riddle' and 'Bla Bla Bla', both by Gigi D'Agostino.

* Finger Eleven's 'One Thing' music video. That is all.

* Much of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's work; particularly "My Pink Half of the Drainpipe" and "Rhinocratic Oaths" which feature extended spoken sections which require several listenings to even begin to visualize, let alone understand.

* Many of the works of modern classical composer Giacinto Scelsi can be just a tiny bit confusing. Take "Uaxuctum," a piece based on the legend of a Mayan city that ritually destroyed itself. His music has been described as "all transition."

* The music video (not the song) for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU Bobby McFerrin´s Don´t Worry, Be Happy].

* Divine Styler's second album, ''Spiral Walls Containing Autumns of Light'' makes roughly as much sense as the title would imply. Musically it's a mixture of hip-hop, jam band like improv sessions, funk, and spoken word. Lyrically it makes very little sense, Styler's bizarre delivery (on this album, anyway) doesn't help.

* Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, while only debuting in late 2011, is certainly in this section. Her first song is PONPONPON (meaning "clap clap clap") has [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g this] video, though the [http://superhappyawesome.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/hengao-pon-pon-pon-lyrics-and-a-chance-to-meet-kyary-pamyu-pamyu/ lyrics] make slightly more sense.

** Her second song was called "Tsukema Tsukeru" which is about putting on false eyelashes. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLy4cvRx7Vc Video makes... sense..]

 

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