5 Songs is a weekly series where we point out the strange, the grand, and the unique connections between our favorite songs. Let’s get weird.

Photo by Michael Wells

Words by Chris

There’s a lot of Raptures these days. Tuesday we’re gonna die, Thursday we’re gonna die. The good news is that it’s all bullshit and nothing really matters! Come along this long road of long songs to the End of Days…

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“1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound” / Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (14:43)

This song is the equivalent of the (pacifist’s) atomic bomb in sound. The title alone is even loud as hell. It morphs around a simply diabolical bass line, with drums crashing without cease, guitars and violins ringing, and Efrim Menuck straining through a vision of destruction all around. Perhaps the most powerful moment of the song is when, after 10 minutes of bashing, the song retreats into just the band harmonizing and Menuck confessing the very birth of his fears and then offering, “Silk screen that, ye tweets, across thy Internet.” Brings a chill to a spine.

Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra / 1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound

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“Method Acting & Cortez the Killer” / Dave Rawlings Machine (10:21)

This duplex of covers in one track by Dave Rawlings Machine combines Conor Oberst’s song of the possibility of singularity in dark times and Neil Young’s heavy study of Cortez’s conquering of the Aztecs. The two songs are in deep conversation, and Rawlings (accompanied by Gillian Welch) meanders for a few minutes after “Method Acting” to lull you until the next song approaches from way out at sea.

Dave Rawlings Machine / Method Acting & Cortez the Killer

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“Kissing the Beehive” / Wolf Parade (10:52)

Speaking of invasion by sea… A great moment in Wolf Parade’s catalog where their two songwriters, Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner, trade the lead vocal and this winding and layered tale of careless actions causing big problems. The song pleads in its urgency to “Put the ring back on and take your husband home!”, and features the keeping of the Grail and lots of seafaring metaphors. Sounds like war could erupt from anywhere, even the altar.

Wolf Parade / Kissing the Beehive

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“Sins of My Father” / Tom Waits (10:38)

Tom Waits just gets more ambitious as he ages. This song, from 2006’s Real Gone (or as we like to call it, Real F’n Gone) is a long and winding blues bummer that seems to get lower and lower as it goes, sketching a character bent to the will of god and law and man and claiming the worst fate: sanity. There’s mistrust of all the principals of the nation, from Uncle Sam to the Man from Nazareth Himself, coloring the world black and deep red.

Tom Waits / Sins of My Father

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“Massage the History” / Sonic Youth (9:43)

Sonic Youth’s 100th long-winded punk epic has a little Spanish guitar flavor in the intro, which creates the sensation of speed. Kim Gordon whispers as if she’s exhausted from the weight of the oil and machines and multitudes. It becomes clear that this sensation of speed is the world events whizzing through you as you sit in the comfort of your own home. This disgust weighs on the song, as it roars and builds up fire within itself halfway through and then discharges into some mad thunderous shit and then bleeds out. Kim Gordon urges, “I want you to suck my neck.” Phew, that’s some desperate apocalyptic shit.

Sonic Youth / Massage the History

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Let the Rapture cometh. Do you have other songs that edge over the 10 minutes mark and feature death and destruction? If so, let us know and don’t forget to have a Happy Monday!

Filed under: 5 Songs, Not Blake, Jim, or Brendan