A Murder of Crows

Suicide
Album: Suicide
Frankie Teardrop

Alan Vega and Mercury Rev were a couple of New York post-punk thugs known for brandishing bicycle chains onstage and physically assaulting their audience.  Nice.  Highly confrontational, their gigs could just as easily be defined as performance art.

"Frankie Teardrop" is the story of a man who has a tenuous grip on reality.  He murders his family and then, realizing what he has done, kills himself.  Your classic boy meets girl tale.

The music is basically two synth notes repeated over and over and over and over and over.  And over.  And over.  Listening to it today I get a renewed sense of impending violence.  And once the deed is done, Vega's anguished screams puncture the suffocating atmosphere, providing terrifying counterpoint.

"We are all Frankies."

I need a hug.