For Your Pleasure

29th October 2010

Post with 5 notes

Last year I constructed a Halloween mix that really made me proud. I seamlessly weaved Satanic camp (“Shout at the Devil”, “The Number of the Beast”, “Hells Bells”) with hard and heavy sounds that revel in the macabre (“Monsters in the Parasol”, “Electric Funeral”, “Human Fly”). I added ghoulish classics (“Thriller”, the Misfits’ and the Banshees’ eponymous tributes to the holiday, The Lost Boys’ theme,  ”Cry Little Sister”, Dokken’s “Dream Warriors”) and then sprinkled in a few less obvious choices with a dark magic bent (“Sisters of the Moon”, “Black Cat”, “She Wolf”). 

This year I realized the gaping, dark hole in my awesomely occult playlist: Bryan Adams’ “Cuts Like a Knife”. 

It’s the juxtaposition of this innocuous favorite with images of a knife-wielding psychopath, finely chopping ex-lovers with the dexterity of a sous chef,that renders it an obvious choice.One can assume that Patrick Bateman was a fan of the Canadian rocker and this was his “deep” cut.

Adams’ voice is raspy and unsettling, like a voice beyond the grave, bemoaning a good love gone wrong. He’s been played for a fool and is demanding answers: “Who is he, baby?/And tell me what he means to you.” He realizes after “drivin’ home this evening” that his girl is “letting go.” He then compares this heartbreaking feeling to the violent act of the song’s title, but the real horrific shock comes when Adams professes that this “feels so right.” Sure, Adams could just be another whiny masochist or a precursor to those emofied boys that get their kicks out of being cuckolded but when the guitars hush as he repeats the chorus, it becomes painfully clear: these are not the words of a masochist, but of a lovelorn sadist hellbent on revenge.

And then that hauntingly insistent chorus of “Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na” comes in and the dread continues to build. Each new “Na” revealed like a brutal stab in the flesh. Adams still growling over the chorus: “And it feels so right!” with maniacal glee. One imagines the lovable crooner of “Heaven” impaling entire audiences of soccer moms with a sole switchblade, turning stadiums into abbatoirs, and not letting up until an encore of “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)”, which now in the wake of this soft rock massacre, assumes an entirely new flesh-crawling meaning.

And if you still need convincing, check out the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VZhSkREYBc&feature=fvst

(Sorry. Bryan Adam’s wranglers won’t let me embed.)

The director clearly agrees with my argument, slasher cam and all. Peeling a golden delicious has never been portrayed with such Hitchcockian suspense.