‘Ted, Just Admit It’: The Jane’s Addiction song about serial killer Ted Bundy
Regarding the alternative side of music, Jane’s Addiction remain one of its original enigmas. Widely impactful yet perennially polarising, the aspects that make the quartet stand out from their peers also put others off. For instance, the critiques of the band are primarily concerned with the high-pitched wail of frontman Perry Farrell, an acquired taste which has even been dubbed inaccessible by some. Despite these detractors, the group would not be the same without their focal point, such is the nature of Jane’s Addiction.
Outside this point of contention, other key signifiers are more widely celebrated. These include the complex, esoteric guitar flourishes of Dave Navarro, consolidated by drummer Stephen Perkins’ equally mesmerising rhythms. Both are heavily indebted to the psychedelic sounds of the 1960s, with the hippie movement’s fascination with eastern rhythms and religions coursing throughout.
Another area that has made the Los Angeles group so bewitching but has also put listeners off is their tendency to dance with an authentic sense of darkness. This is a natural stylistic inclination, given what some band members have endured in their personal lives. The most shocking illustration is the 1983 double murder of Navarro’s mother and aunt at the hand of the former’s ex-boyfriend when Navarro was just a teenager.
The incident is something Navarro has spoken about extensively as an adult, as unsurprisingly, the tragedy changed the trajectory of his life. Outside of death, sex and drugs are also explored extensively, with the band’s narcotic form of music bringing these analyses to life. This angle appears to be a successor to the work of Jim Morrison and The Doors in the late 1960s.
Concentrating on the deathly aspect, ‘Three Days’, a song taken from Ritual de lo Habitual, is arguably the band’s masterpiece and is their most prominent dalliance with the subject. However, one of their early tracks, ‘Ted, Just Admit It’, from their 1988 debut Nothing’s Shocking, approaches it more starkly than anywhere else in their oeuvre.
The piece is about the real serial killer Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious and prolific murderers in history. FBI agent Robert Ressler famously coined the phrase “serial killer” to describe him as he confessed to 30 murders. His actual victim count is believed to be much higher than this. At the opening of the song, Farrell sings, “Camera got them images / Camera got them all / Nothing’s shocking”, with the last line giving the album its title.
The most memorable moment of ‘Ted, Just Admit It’ is the section that begins with the words “There’s gonna be people turning up in canyons” – an actual recording of Ted Bundy. This instils the track with an almost palpable sense of depravity in one of the sharpest creative decisions Jane’s Addiction captured.
