‘Deep Red Bells’: The secretly terrifying song too scarring for your Halloween playlist
An artist’s proximity to their subject matter plays a key role in determining the extent to which their work speaks to those at the receiving end, which is precisely what makes Neko Case more than someone with just an imagination.
A lived experience, depending on how effectively it is conveyed, has the power of credibility and can influence people’s worldviews. No matter how dire, there’s a sense of reassurance encircling fiction that permits us to keep telling ourselves, “At least it’s not real.” As beautiful as the world may be in its grandeur, there’s a darkness to it that’s just as prevalent, and The New Pornographers‘ vocalist was able to capture both through her songwriting and storytelling.
In 2002, Case released her third studio album, Blacklisted. The country folk record featured an intimate tracklist held together by her eloquent delivery, though there’s one song that cuts deeper than the rest. Despite its agreeable exterior, ‘Deep Red Bells’ was inspired by a series of tragedies that befell the northwestern United States during the late 20th-century.
Even though she moved around a lot growing up, the indie rock icon has always considered Washington state to be her home, with Tacoma being where she truly came into her own after being legally emancipated from her parents at the age of 16. Her newfound independence, however, was also a frightening experience given the threats that were looming over the area at the time.
From 1982 to 1998, Gary Ridgway murdered a total of 49 women in the region (although he claimed a much higher count), It wasn’t until 2001 that DNA evidence put him away for good, before which he moved freely for about one and a half decades. Coined the ‘Green River Killer’ by media outlets, he was notorious for strangling his victims and dumping their corpses across several different uninhabited locations.
What’s interesting about Case’s song is that it was recorded before Ridgway was apprehended, but released by the time he was already behind bars. Back then, he was the deadliest convicted serial killer in the United States.
Because a lot of the victims were sex workers, the singer-songwriter told Perfect Sound Forever about how disturbing it was to see that the media “didn’t talk about them like they were women much at all.” Those who perished and never elicited sympathy from the public inspired Case to honour them through ‘Deep Red Bells’.
She pays homage to the departed with the lyrics, “All those like you who lost their way, murdered on the interstate while the red bells rang like thunder”, referring to the bodies being left in remote areas, and also laments, “When speckled fawns graze ’round your bones, who took the time to fold your clothes?”
Though the song brought closure to the decades-long mystery, it also gave Case some peace of mind, considering she was perpetually haunted by the killings as a teenager. About that phase of her life, she told AV Club, “We were scared of him. We’d go to school with steak knives in our pockets and stuff”.
While Misfits and The Cramps might be easy picks for Halloween playlists, songs like ‘Deep Red Bells’ simply hit too close to home, and are best left off to avoid reducing them to gimmicky ‘horror’ in the spirit of the spooky season.
