{"id":60,"date":"2012-01-06T23:02:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T04:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westwoodvalley.com\/?p=60"},"modified":"2012-01-06T23:02:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T04:02:20","slug":"my-musical-evolution-part-6-objects-not-a-scary-as-they-appear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wrharrison.com\/musicalevolution\/2012\/01\/06\/my-musical-evolution-part-6-objects-not-a-scary-as-they-appear\/","title":{"rendered":"My Musical Evolution – Part 6 Objects Not A Scary As They Appear"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t think think this project would have even been possible if it were not for the vastness of the internet. It would be impossible for me to physically track down the materials to generate the images or share the musical samples or do the memory jogging research. At the end of this post, I’m going to ask you to use the comments section and post the first song that you loved. I want you to be honest, I’m not here to judge. I know some of you might be tempted to try to be cool. There’s no shame in liking a song. There are so many things to like, the beat, the lyrics, the message, the artist, the feeling it gives you to listen to it or sing along. So remind me at the end.<\/p>\n

If you have been following My Musical Evolution<\/em>\u00a0from the beginning you may have noticed that from the very beginning I have had a fascination with “scary” stuff. I mentioned before, Ghosts, Castles, Dinosaurs and Monsters were very interesting to me. \u00a0I was also nearly coerced into being a cowboy but it didn’t last long. That influence came from my dad’s side of the family. They had been in the USA for a very long time. Farming and cattle and cowboys. My mom’s side were relative newcomers to these United States. They came from Germany and England in the 1890’s. Maybe that is where my ghost and castle thing came from. So on mom’s side crime drama on dad’s side, Gunsmoke, Bonanza and John Wayne. I did like\u00a0The Lone Ranger<\/em>\u00a0for a while, another early classical theme.<\/p>\n

\"Scarecrow\"I’m getting way side tracked, I just wanted to share a couple more things from the final year before being old enough to operate the stereo without assistance. Both of these things had to have been selected by me and only because they had creepishly interesting covers. The Scarecrow Of Romney Marsh<\/em>\u00a0was movie or TV show or something that I never saw which reinforces my belief that I saw this cover and thought “That looks scary.” \u00a0The song turned out to be interesting. It tells the story of a guy who much like the Headless Horseman would ride around coastal England scare the crap out people. However, the Scarecrow had an element of Robin Hood. He seemed to only scare the corrupt King and his soldiers while protecting the common folk. Maybe I should see if this is on Netflix. I’ll share the song below. Check it out. The Scarecrow’s laugh could have really been much scarier but again this was still Disney.<\/p>\n

\"Haunted<\/a>Which brings us to the next stop. What do you notice? Yes, a creepy looking cover. \u00a0If you are over forty, you might recognize this album. If you called my house in the mid 1980’s you probably heard some of the sound effects found on this record. Yes I still had it then and often used the sounds in my telephone answering machine productions. If you are not familiar with this record, \u00a0Side one is basically several tracks featuring various sound effects mixed together to tell an audio story that was set up with a little narrative introduction. Side 2 is just sound effects.Like most sound effects albums of this nature, they are fun to listen to but never scary enough. \u00a0I enjoyed the album anyway but probably not as much as I enjoyed the album art on the cover. I mean, look at that creepy house and graveyard. There’s a light on in the tower!<\/p>\n

I know sound effects may not seem to directly contribute to my musical evolution but looking at my Eclectic Collection <\/em>today you will find several sound effects albums as well as a host of Halloween themed albums. Perhaps collecting scary looking records and scary sounds were more educational as I continued to train to be a headless horseman. How does somebody so young develop the desire to scare people and enjoy scary things so much? Is that way for everybody? Was this how Stephen King was at five? Am I way behind the curve in writing my anthology of terrifying tales? \u00a0Maybe I’m more like John Carpenter. I feel more like making scary movies than writing scary novels. I guess it’s not too late. \u00a0So we really are winding down this phase in my musical evolution. I think I have one more part to write about before the plunge into pop music and that has to do with working on the railroad but for now, The Scarecrow Of Romney Marsh.
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