And now for some erudite interests: a song from a horror videogame (Room of Angel)

This is the opening/main theme song from the Japanese horror videogame Silent Hill 4: The Room:

A long time ago, I read a review that very succinctly and accurately summarized this game's plot: hell has invaded some poor bastard's bathroom. 

The premise is only slightly more complicated. A standard videogame hero who happens to be a reporter moves to/stops by Silent Hill, and one day he wakes up to find that the exit door to his apartment has been chained shut, and that there's a hole in his bathroom wall that takes him to an alternate dimension where the town is overrun by ghosts and . . . creatures like this thing:

I believe these were called . . . some variation of "The Twins", who were the only child victims of serial killer Walter Something . . . Sullivan? It's been a while since I played this thing.

The plot then escalates into an escort mission where standard videogame hero has to save a girl who Walter's ghost wants to turn into his mother, I think. And there's something about bringing about the anti-Christ or apocalypse. Or both.



Walter Sullivan is hardly breaking new ground when it comes to creepy serial killers. He has a mom thing, which this song's lyrics subtly point to:

You lie, silent there before me
Your tears, they mean nothing to me
The wind howling at the window
The love you never gave
I give to you
Really don't deserve it
But now, there's nothing you can do
So sleep, in your only memory of me
My dearest mother

Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry, oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye

So insignificant, sleeping dormant deep inside of me
Are you hiding away, lost, under the sewers?
Maybe flying high, in the clouds?
Perhaps you're happy without me
So many seeds have been sown in the field
And who could sprout up so blessedly
If I had died, I would have never felt sad at all
You will not hear me say 'I'm sorry'
Where is the light, wonder if it's weeping somewhere?

Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry, oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye

Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry, oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye

Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry, oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye

Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry, oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye

The last minute or so of this song is viscerally terrifying, and it has no lyrics. When I was younger, I thought it had to do with the scratchy tape noise and the garbled moans, but now I realize there's a recording of tachycardic heartbeat on the background. There's a heartbeat throughout the piece, but while the woman is singing, the heart rate is slow and even, and thus I am calm. Then the heart rate speeds up, and I suspect that so does my own heart rate as I listen. Hence the dread at the last minute of the song.

Pretty cool, right?