Paranoia Fuel/Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Whomever wrote the cheesy Christmas chestnut "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" must openly hate children. The song never ever specifies what will happen to you if Santa sees you pouting... in your sleep... Shudder...
    • It gets worse. There's a version of the song by Johnny Mercer with some extra verses. While, once again, it's never specified what Santa does to naughty children, there are some very heavy -and deeply unsettling- implications:

If little Hal and Charlie don't mind their P's and Q's,
How sad! Too bad! They'll wish they had!
When the old boy (Santa) blows his fuse!

    • This VG Cats strip might help allay the paranoia. Or ratchet it to new heights.
    • This is played with in the Discworld novel Hogfather, where it's Death standing in for Santa. Imagine the terror of a skeleton in a Santa suit asking, Have you been naughty...or nice? Luckily, Death is a good guy, but the inherent creepiness of the above mentioned song is referenced directly. Of course, Hogfather isn't devoid of its own nightmarish moments.
    • As Calvin put it: "Santa Claus: Jolly old elf, or CIA spook?"
    • Or, in the words of Mystery Science Theater 3000's Mike Nelson: "Santa's tendrils reach far and wide. There is no hiding from the CLAUS organization!"
    • How about hearing it sung by Dexter Morgan? The cherry on top is when he reaches the line "I'm telling you why" and somebody in the audience asks why:

Santa Clause will kill you if you're bad.

  • "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Just watch the ending of the music video with the close up on his demonic face, combined with his "this is not an occult video" message at the beginning.
  • Somebody's Watching Me by Rockwell has this trope as its general theme.
    • Which led to its use in a 2008-09 series of Geico commercials, where your money is watching you. With a big bug-eyed stare.
  • Tom Waits' "What's He Building In There?" defines this trope, musically; it's never made entirely clear whether the narrator of the song is just an over-paranoid and unstable person fixating on some innocent and harmless (if slightly reclusive and unconventional) neighbour, or whether the neighbour actually is up to something very sinister indeed...
  • Tin Hat's cover of "Daisy Bell" turns a charming turn-of-the-century love song into a softly-voiced stalker's fantasy.
  • "Subway Song" by The Cure. Especially if you are a woman and you have to walk anywhere by yourself at night. Turn around.
  • Mysto and Pizzi's infamous Somebody's Watching Me remix. The original obviously qualifies.
  • The track "Faaip di Oiad" on the {{Tool}] album Lateralus. It sounds like a desperate, last-ditch final broadcast by someone who has discovered a number of terrifying things: Aliens are here. They've been here for a while. They've infiltrated many areas of the government and military. They have plans for this planet. And they're coming to get me because I know the truth.
    • The name itself means something like "Voices of your God" in Enochian ("Angelic"). Eep.
    • The pAper chAse's version-less Ministry and more Penderecki-2 versions, respectively titled It's Out There and it's Gonna Get You (which introduces We Know Where You Sleep) and We Will Make One of Us (one of their most upbeat tracks, leading into the track The House is Alive & The House Is Hungry.)
    • Even more chilling is that the lyrics are a recording of a former Area 51 employee calling Coast to Coast AM, a radio show hosted at the time by Art Bell. It could be fake, the guy could be a great actor pretending to have vital information so horrific it causes him to break down and sob, and it could have been a satellite error that caused the radio station to go off the air. But we'll never know, will we?
    • Another Tool song, Lost Keys, seems to fit perfectly with Faaip de Oiad. The instrumentals don't clash, and the lyrics of Lost Keys start just after Faaip de Oiad's cut off.
  • The Geto Boys' classic song My Mind's Playing Tricks on Me is a very disturbing song of paranoia and Schizophrenia.
  • "Every Breath You Take" by The Police on the surface appears to be a sweet, soft rock song - until one listens to the lyrics closely. "I'll be watching you..."
  • Queensrÿche's Gonna get close to you. It's the 80's prog-metal version of Every Breath You Take -- only not nearly so subtle.
  • Second Lives by Vitalic. Or rather, the video, where a camera is observing the users of a bathroom stall and at the end Vitalic comes in and picks up his camera.
  • The Genesis song "The Day The Light Went Out", a song about The End of the World as We Know It, in which something arrives here and puts out the light... and then, it prepares to feed...

When they went to bed that night no one would have believed
That in the morning, light would not be there
The dark hung heavy on the air like the grip of a jealous man
No place was there known to have been spared
Then panic took control of minds and fear hit everyone
The day the light went out of the daytime sky.

  • Judging from the lyrics, the song "Lost Northern Star" on Tarja's solo album after her falling-out with Nightwish is probably supposed to be about a guardian angel. But when you actually hear it, it comes across more like it's about Slender Man.
  • "The Wilderness Downtown," AKA the music video for "We Used To Wait," might make you slightly worried about your house being under surveillance. This is because it shows you surveillance photos of your house. Seriously. Sweet dreams.
    • Mitigated somewhat by it only being Google Earth, but this doesn't make it any less of a Tear Jerker.
  • "Papercut" by Linkin Park:

It's like I'm paranoid, looking over my back
It's like a whirlwind inside of my head
It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

I am the eye in the sky, looking at you,
I can read your mind.
I am the maker of rules, dealing with fools,
I can cheat you blind.
And I don't need to see any more to know that
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind.

  • Man, listen to the lyrics of "I Will Possess Your Heart" by Death Cab for Cutie (or, for that matter, just the title).

There are days when outside your window
I see my reflection as I slowly pass,
and I long for this mirrored perspective
when we'll be lovers, lovers at last.

    • Then, later:

You reject my advances and desperate pleas
I won't let you let me down so easily

The Lunatic is in my head

The Lunatic is in my head
—or even creepier There's someone in my head, but it's not me...
  • The ironically titled "Nothing to Fear" by Oingo Boingo: "Hey, baby, let me give you some advice / The Russians are gonna pulverize us in our sleep tonight." And if they don't get you, then Arab terrorists will. And if they don't get you, a lonely old man in a brand-new car will give you candy or ice cream before getting you wired on cocaine and then raping you. And if he doesn't get you, then one of countless other things - Christianity, television, etc. - will just sap your will and warp your mind. Now go to sleep...
  • Judas Priest's "Night Crawler." A giant carnivorous worm from Hell can slither into your house, and it will see you in the dark.
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