That eerie feeling: 10 strange songs from equally strange artists
Right now, we are living through hard and troubled times—times riddled with war and war crimes, the dangerously visible impacts of a devastating climate crisis, a growing divide between the left and the right, and an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots. Every day, we’re met with fresh reminders that things aren’t as they should be—or, as the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe put it, strange things are happening every day.
But then, she sang those words all the way back in 1944. Things have only gotten stranger since then, and plenty of music has reflected that changing strangeness, either through its lyrics or through the use of a novel soundscape. Music has always been around to capture the eccentricities of the world, reflecting the impact of the times on the people.
Music has always been an important tool in helping us navigate difficult times; it gives us something solid to hold onto when the world around us feels funky. Sometimes, though, music can get just as strange as the times that we’re living in.
Whether in the audial experimentation from composers like John Cage or Philip Glass; the melange of world music that meets together on albums like Jackie Mclean and Michael Carvin’s Antiquity, or the out-of-this-world trip of Sun Ra’s Space is the Place; in the avant-garde freak-outs from Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Diamanda Galás, or alternately in the dreamy weirdness of groups like The Flaming Lips, artists have always had a knack for pushing the limits of perception, reality and, on occasion, the listeners’ patience. Creativity is a strange thing itself, and it’s no wonder that for talents as varied as Tom Waits and Randy Newman to Billie Eilish, Celeste and Olivia Rodrigo, strangeness has always tickled their curiosity.
The 10 greatest ‘strange’ songs in history:
‘Stranger’ – Olivia Rodrigo (2024)
Similar to Celeste’s ‘Strange’, this song’s lyrics remind you of all the things you know about somebody who has become a stranger to you since a breakup. And, again, similar to Celeste’s effort, Rodrigo’s song is a mature-beyond-her-years ballad.
But while the former song is a heartbreaking slow-burn, there is a real sense of freedom in this one, like Rodrigo is able to breathe for the first time since her heartbreak hit. She’s able to leave the house and do all the things alone that she was too scared to do without him before. The song contains a real outpouring of freedom and joy at the realisation that the man she’s left behind is now a mere strangеr that she just happens to know everything about.
‘People Are Strange’ – Echo and The Bunnymen (1987)
It’s brave to decide to cover The Doors. Jim Morrison is one of the most revered frontmen in history and is treated like a deity in the rock canon. When you do decide to cover them, it probably helps to have one of the original band in the recording studio with you.
Recorded for the 1987 film The Lost Boys, Echo and The Bunnymen’s cover of ‘People Are Stranger’ features Doors founder and keyboard player Ray Manzarek on organ. Though they make the song sound entirely their own, the lyric suits Ian McCulloch perfectly. Manzarek is let loose on the keys while the band really swings behind him. Thanks to the popularity of the film, the song climbed into the top 30 of the charts. The strangest thing is that it didn’t climb higher.
‘Strange Thing’ – Ren Harvieu (2020)
One of the more upbeat songs on this list, it’s also one of the strangest—and that’s saying something. The song shifts genre constantly, wrong-footing you throughout, but it grabs your attention straight away and never lets it go. There are elements of swirling synth-pop in here, moments more in tune with the 1970s singer-songwriters or 1950s rock and roll. There is a dash of pop, more than a dash of disco and even a tangle of the tango twisting through it.
“You know I’m not like other girls,” Harvieu sings at one point, and this is also not like other songs. “I see you”, she adds later in the song, “Pretending not to have a good time”. With this sublime song playing, there’s no doubt about it: you are guaranteed to have a blast.
‘Strange’ – Celeste (2021)
One of the most devastating breakup songs of recent times, this is an understated powerhouse in songwriting and vocal performance, which invokes the feeling and emotions at the heart of classic songs from artists like Joni Mitchell or Roberta Flack.
Co-written with Jamie Hartman and accompanied by beautiful but haunting piano and strings, Celeste delivers a stunning vocal which describes the breakdown of a relationship, singing, “Isn’t it strange how people can change from strangers to friends, friends into lovers, and strangers again?”. There is a quiet power at the heart of this song, a resignation at what has been lost and a maturity well beyond her years, which marks Celeste out as an artist to keep a keen eye on.
‘My Strange Addiction’ – Billie Eilish (2019)
Billie Eilish took the world by storm with the release of her first full-length album
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?.
Co-written with her brother Finneas, as all of her songs are, ‘My Strange Addiction’ perfectly encapsulates the Billie Eilish sound from this period. It is an understated but quietly driving piece of avant-pop, hypnotic and captivating, like an undertow that you can’t see but which pulls you along. The song never seems to be going anywhere, but you can’t stop listening. Interspersed with samples of dialogue from The Office, the song is strange but no stranger than anything else on her brilliant first album.
‘People Are Strange’ – Zella Day (2020)
Zella Day’s lush 2020 ballad opens with the line “People are strangers, I’m getting stranger”, which is a lyric that many could relate to at any point in our ever-strange times, but probably never more so than in the strange world we all found ourselves in when this song came out in 2020.
With the world locked down, lyrics like “you’re only alone for a little while, so do what you can to sit back and smile” felt entirely prescient when they came along. Singing on top of a dreamy bed of strings, guitars and drums, the music cascades around Day’s voice, making this one of her most beautiful tracks and the perfect piece to sit back and smile to while everything gets stranger outside.
‘Strange Things’ – Randy Newman (1995)
While his Toy Story soundtrack is most famous for the classic ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me’, that wasn’t the only great song that Randy Newman wrote for the film. ‘Strange Things’ is sung from the point of view of Sheriff Woody, who finds himself replaced in Andy’s affections when “out of the sky like a bomb comes some little punk in a rocket”. Singing about the way he perceived that Buzz Lightyear has taken over his place, power and respect among their fellow toys, Newman’s Woody narrator bemoans that some “strange things are happening to me, ain’t no doubt about it”.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all is how the sardonic, sarcastic and satirical singer-songwriter Randy Newman had ended up becoming the musical face of the Toy Story franchise in the first place, but with songs as good as these, thank God that he did.
‘Strange Weather’ – Tom Waits (1988)
“All weather is strange. When you’re strange,” Tom Waits sometimes said before performing this song in concert.
Surely one of the most fascinating and mystifying entertainers in all of popular culture, to call Tom Waits and most of his music “strange” should seem like an understatement. And while only the hardiest of his fans would dare explore his offerings on albums like Bone Machine or The Black Rider, those who can get past his Halloween voice and anything-goes arrangements will find a whole host of strange delights. Ironically, though, ‘Strange Weather’, which he co-wrote with his wife Kathleen Brennan for Marianne Faithful, is one of his more straight ahead and normal numbers.
‘Strange Fruit’ – Billie Holiday (1939)
One of the most haunting and harrowing songs in recorded music history, ‘Strange Fruit’ originated as a poem in protest against the lynchings of black citizens in the American south. Written by Abel Meeropol, Billie Holiday’s recording was released in 1939 on the Commodore label and connected with enough people that it sold a million copies.
The song has been referred to as “the beginning of the civil rights movement” and would surely send a chill down the spine of even the most hardened or violent racist, with its imagery of “blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze” and heart-shattering vocal performance from Holiday.
‘Strange Things Happening Every Day’ – Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944)
One of the most important figures in rock and roll, every lead guitarist owes a debt of gratitude to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Starting out as a gospel singer, Sister Rosetta’s lightning guitar work expanded the horizons of what guitar playing could look and sound like. She opened up new ways for the guitar to be used as a lead instrument. With her electrifying performances and red-hot rock and roll mixed with gospel roots and messages, she influenced everybody from Little Richard to Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. In fact, she’s still inspiring new acts today — you can hear talented singers like Celisse paying tribute to her in concert.
With her signature songs ‘Didn’t It Rain’ and ‘Strange Things Happening Every Day’, Sister Rosetta was probably about 20 or 30 years ahead of her time. Her 1944 recording of Strange Things Every Day has at times been pin-pointed a contender for being the first rock and roll record.
