Death. That's... pretty final...

In fact, it's a subject many people don't want to talk about, read about or experience at all in any way, shape or form. I've always been fascinated by it though. Not in a "Cary wants to die" way. Trust me, I'm extremely happy being alive. My fascination has always been with how death is perceived in history, culture and art. That fascination began with how death was mythologized in rock and roll music.

Whether it's famous rock and roll deaths like Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix and Mama Cass or the famous high school rock and roll myths ("When the police arrived at the scene, the car stereo was playing 'Runnin' With The Devil' man!") the two seem to flirt with one another constantly.

Death as a subject has spawned some truly great songs. While not as proliferous as the "Love Song", the "Death Songs" category seems to have more winners than losers and while there are some famous classic hits like Bloodstone's "D.O.A." and Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve", many of my favorite death songs never made it to radio. In my opinion though, they stand head and shoulders above their more popular brethren.

Here is my favorite five:

1. Deep Red Bells - Neko Case: Lyrically, Case tells the story of a young girl abducted and killed on the highway. Her body lies in the grassy field near an overpass and for me, the song brings to mind the highways I used to travel near Flat Rock, North Carolina. The mountains in that area have a mist that tends to hang around them in the early mornings and I can easily imagine a body lying forgotten amongst the beauty of the forest. Case pulls off this imagery perfectly with lines like "speckled fronds raise round your bones" and describes the bloody handprint on the car as looking "a lot like engine oil and tastes like being poor and small". Top that off with Neko Case having the most amazing voice in music right now (at least in my opinion) and this is a hell of a great song. In fact, this is probably my favorite "death song" ever; although number two on this list is a close, close second.

2. Not Even Stevie Nicks - Calexico: This song cuts right to the chase. The opening lines are "With a head like a vulture and a heart full of hornets he drives off the cliff into the blue". Seriously, how fucking great is that opening line! Blend that with Calexico's penchant for combining elements of traditional rock and southwestern influences and you've got a truly great song. Plus, in the tradition of all truly perfect songs, it's short (2:43) but I'll leave further discussion of that theory for another column. It's not my favorite Calexico song (that would be very hard for me to define) but it's a truly great death song.

3. A Good Idea - Sugar: This song is a personal favorite because the first few times I heard it I didn't pay attention to the lyrics at all. I just liked the music. I got to see Sugar in Athens when they were playing warm up gigs for their first tour. The album wasn't out yet and I was walking away from shows singing "That's a good idea, she said, she said" for days because they were the only lyrics I knew. I couldn't wait to get my hands on that album and when I did, I was blown away by the macabre lyrics of this upbeat, rollicking song. It's a sometimes-confusing story of a drowning. Confusing because half the lyrics seem to be sung by the murderer and the other half seem to be sung by a witness who watched from his boat on the ocean. The two perspectives paint a very interesting picture, with the victim seeming to be a willing participant. Ultimately, the witness says he expects to see her ghost when he's on the water, which instantly reminds me of Creepshow.

4. Tomorrow Wendy - Concrete Blonde: "Hey hey, Goodbye. Tomorrow Wendy's going to die." This one is a given. Of course, it's also every Goth teen's favorite song, but there's a reason for that. Tomorrow Wendy lets you wander through the mind of a woman who is on the verge of death. I've heard people say she's dying of AIDS, cancer, etc. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that Wendy's recollections are painted through what seems to be a haze of painkillers that make her veer from nostalgic bliss to anger at what God has done to her. In doing so, she takes the listener on a ride through a range of emotions that I've never heard explored as well in any other rock song. Despite the instant urge to bag on it because of the Goth thing, it's truly powerful and made even more so by Johnette Napolitano's awesome voice.

5. No One Lives Forever - Oingo Boingo: If there's any death song that will instantly get a party going, this would be the one. Danny Elfman and company wave their asses in the face of the Reaper himself and dance merrily away while reminding you that there's a price to pay. The imagery in the lyrics alone goes perfectly with the band's Dia De Los Muertos image. "Let's have a party, there's a full moon in the sky. It's the hour of the wolf and I don't want to die." Not exactly the chess-playing knight from a Bergman film is it? Even so, this is one of the songs I'd like played at my wake. If you're going to go out, you might as well go out dancing.

So there you go. If I were to make you my ultimate death mix CD, those five would be on there for sure. Others I'd include would be The Replacements The Ledge, The Decemberists Leslie Anne Levine, The Cramps TV Set and one of my newest favorites The Birthday Massacre's Lover's End. There are a million more out there though.

Post up in the Holla! thread and tell me some of yours.