Acid Leaves No Trace: Ten Morbid Melodies from Garbo’s Daughter

10. The Whyte Boots, “Nightmare”
Lesley Gore may have decided to cry when Judy was showing off Johnny’s ring, but don’t mess with Bobby’s girl! You won’t make it out alive! From 1967, “Nightmare” is a song in which a scorned girl gets a little bit more than catty with her rival. All of the photos (featuring three tough-looking girls with whips) and press releases for the Whyte Boots were fabricated. In reality, the group was a studio creation of Brill Building songwriters Lori Burton and Pam Sawyer.

9. The Ramones, “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl”
By the advent of their second album, Leave Home (1977), The Ramones had already established their fascination with all things deranged and macabre. “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl” took their dementia one step further. Ushered in by deceivingly delicate guitar and Joey’s best melodramatic hiccup, the listener is soon tossed before their signature eighth-note firing squad. The most disturbing aspect of this track is the fiendishly provoking chant that overtakes Joey’s detached sympathy for the victim and closes the song.

8. Downliners Sect, “Now She’s Dead”
One of Britain’s best R&B bands, The Downliners Sect released an EP entitled The Sect Sing Sick Songs in 1965. The disc included such grisly tunes as “I Want My Baby Back,” “Leader of the Sect” (inspired by the Shangri-Las’ classic death disc “Leader of the Pack), and “Now She’s Dead.” The BBC didn’t share the Sects’ sense of humor and issued a blanket ban on the group—effectively killing any chance of commercial success.

7. Shangri-Las, “Give Us Your Blessing”
No strangers to the “death genre,” The Shangri-Las returned to the teenage demise theme of “Leader of the Pack” in 1965 with “Give Us Your Blessing.” Mary and Jimmy want to get hitched but mom and dad think they’re too young. The couple speeds off on a rainy night and don’t see the detour sign through their tears. It’s not just the teenagers who meet their doom in Shangs’ tunes, though! Mom got her turn later that year in “I Can Never Go Home Anymore.”

6. Nick Lowe, “Marie Provost”
Perhaps inspired by Kenneth Anger’s scandalous book Hollywood Babylon, British pop laureate Nick Lowe’s tongue-in-cheek ode to the demise of Canadian actress Marie Prevost took liberties with more than just the spelling of her name. With her film career lagging due to weight gain, former ingénue Prevost crash-dieted and drank herself to a fatal heart attack on January 21, 1937. She was 38 years old.

Responding to complaints of a barking dog, police discovered her body two days later in her Hollywood apartment. The late Ms. Prevost’s limbs were covered with scratches and bites from her dachshund, John Kelly. According to the official report, the marks suggested the pooch was only trying to wake his owner; however, the story is often sensationalized into something much more gruesome. “Marie Provost” can be found on Nick’s 1977 Stiff EP Bowi and his recently reissued 1978 album Jesus Of Cool (released as Pure Pop For Now People in the US to avoid controversy).

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