Why we have to stop the ‘true crime’ obsession
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Credit: Press
The classic spooky Swans song about a serial killer
Our current fascination with the wicked ways of a serial killer is a curious one. Serial killers are responsible for less than 1% of murders in the US each year, and Scott Bonn, a sociologist at Drew University, estimates there are less than two dozen active at any given time. Despite this, our captivation with this tiny, ghastly asterisk to society endures, often dwarfing far larger and more manageable problems, which Bonn puts down to a “kind of cultural hysteria”. That hysteria is growing.
This morbid fascination is a global phenomenon, for better or for worse, and most likely for worse, we can’t escape the psychological draw of the demimonde’s darkest characters. Songwriters are seemingly no different. The search for source material that spawns an interesting hit has led artists to the degenerate realms of everyone from Charles Manson and the Vampire of Dusseldorf to Jack the Ripper.
Somehow these artists have transfigured such atrocities into creative works that, like all good art, helps us to make sense of the world and offers a least some sort of deliverance from the subjects contained therein. And Swans frontman Michael Gira is certainly not afraid to broach a controversial subject.
As the irascible frontman said of the sort of songwriting subjects that attracted him: “It was a kind of sado-masochism. I would take the things that were painful to me and elevate them and, through the mantra of music, make them into a release.” That was true on the societal level as well as the personal, and with one of the finest song titles ever crafted, he did just that.
Part of our fascination with serial killers is due to the psychological degeneracy it takes to become so heinous. One of the most disturbing answers we find on this front is the case of Dennis Nilsen, a homosexual who claimed he strangled his 12-15 male victims out of extreme loneliness, hence the song’s title ‘Killing for Company’.
Once Nilsen had killed his victims, he would reportedly have sex with them, bathe them, and then prop the cadavers up on the sofa as though they were watching TV with him. Swans capture the true darkness of Scotland’s most grisly crime chapter in a perturbing sound and even more unsettling lyrics.
Taken from their epic 1995 album The Great Annihilator, the track is a profound example of how well the Welsh band can create an atmosphere. The walls of the studio seem to steadily close in on the track and following the song up with ‘Mother’s Milk’ is an act of tracklisting genius. All in all, it remains as disturbing as ever and yet seemed to foreshadow our peculiar enchantment with the most odious characters in society.
