#92: Echo & the Bunnymen / "The Killing Moon"

- Writer(s): Will Sergeant, Ian McCulloch, Les Pattinson & Pete de Freitas
- Year: 1984
- Album: Ocean Rain

The 100 Song Project Halloween Special!

Back in the mid-‘90s, when “alternative” music was mainstream, a goofy voiced stoner named Jed The Fish, hosted Out of Order: a syndicated-radio “alternative” version of American Top 40 – songs with layers of screeching guitars and scratchy vocals – a countdown where bands like Veruca Sault and Stabbing Westward could compete for a top spot.

15 Halloweens ago I heard an Out of Order special that focused on several “alternative” horror-themed rock songs.  That was the first time I heard Morrissey’s epic, “November Spawned a Monster.” Back then, I knew little of him and the Smiths, but that 2 minute interlude of creepy woman-child wailing really caught my attention.

And it was also the first time I heard “The Killing Moon.”  Granted, its overall Halloweeness is questionable, as the ill-omened lyrics and the “Time of the Season”-ish thump-de-thump-thump bass much resemble a western murder ballad.  When Ian McCulloch sings ‘It must be the killing time,” it’s as if I could see an extreme cinematic zoom-in on a revolver or a rattle snake.  The intensely plucked strings in the instrumental bridge conjures visions of an OK Corral-type shoot-out.  It’s like a landlocked cousin of the Bunnymen’s nautical “Ocean Rain.”

To me and, perhaps, to Jed the Fish, however, the notion of vampires also comes to mind.  Lyrically, there’s no blatant mention of bloodsucking.  Though, the central line – that commanding chorus, “Fate up against your will… he will wait until you give yourself to him,” (which is repeated ad-nauseum during the latter half of the song), and the mention of a “cruel kiss,” paints a Dracula hypnosis scene.

Back then vampires morphed into rubber bats, made guest appearances on cheap Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and haunted surfing parties with their misfit monster pals.  Perhaps, at the time, the scene pined for sex and danger, and such insinuations are much the appeal of this song.  This was before the Lost Boys and Buffy, and way before Twilight.

This was the Echo & Bunnymen’s best attempt at simultaneous chart-success and goth-cred.  They received a slight resurrection, 20 years later, with a new crowd of semi-fans, thanks to this song being featured in the opening scene of the hip indie-film Donnie Darko, but interest quickly dissipated – the echo faded once again – lost somewhere between alternative and mainstream.