Sing a Song for Us Tonight is a segment where people choose a song that is special to them and explain why. Today’s guest is Franzy and he’s chosen Dead Eyes Opened by Severed Heads. Here’s his story, thanks Franz
This song isn’t one of my favourites. It isn’t by a favourite band, it doesn’t ever feature on my favourite playlists, my iTunes playcount tells me that before tonight, I’ve never listened to it all the way through. The origin of this song is what’s made me put it above Tool, The Chemical Brothers, Tricky, Tom Waits, Fatboy Slim, Plump DJs, Pavarotti, Xavier Rudd, Faith No More, The Roots, Grieg and Underworld as worthy of a story.
‘Dead Eyes Opened’ by Severed Heads first appeared to me as a pimply teenager. I got it on the first CD I ever bought: The Triple J Hottest 100 of 1994 (number two). The one with the red hot oven plates as headphones on the cover. The interesting thing about this is that I didn’t actually own any kind of device on which a CD could be played. I just bought the CD and listened to it at friends’ houses.
Then I bought my first computer.
By this stage I had moved out of my little bedroom across the hall from the kitchen and down to the back room. I had my computer set up on a desk and I would close the door and play a cracked version of Doom 2 (which I had painstakingly loaded onto my gargantuan 200 Mb hard-drive) with the stereo speakers turned all the way up. Those were the days. I would finish my homework and my saxophone practise and roll around hell, blasting imps and demons with the BFG 9000.
Then I discovered that you could also listen to CDs while you scrolled through the thirty gore-soaked levels of Doom 2 and, since the only CD I had was Triple J Hottest 100 2, into the CD-ROM drive it went (gasp! So hi-technological!) . I kept having to pause the game to skip past all the chick songs like Veruca Salt and Max Sharam, but, hammering away on the ‘Ctrl’ key, unleashing rockets and plasma while listening to Nine Inch Nails and Itch-e and Scratch-e was just about the pinnacle of being 14 in 1994. I did occasionally play Doom a bit too much and find myself immersed in daytime fantasies wherein I was cruising the neighbourhood on the way to the bus in the morning, shotgun blasting cats, picking up 200% health charges and making growling noises, but I discussed this with a few mates and we all assured each other that this was perfectly normal.
Something different happened when ‘Dead Eyes Opened’ used to come on.
My back room bedroom was quite large. And cold. And relatively spooky, owing to the single, naked-bulbed light-fitting. When I was eight I used to pick that room to sit in and listen to old cassette recordings of HG Wells’ War of the Worlds while eating ice cream for dessert and scaring the creeping shit out of myself imagining aliens looming through the darkness to look in through the large black windows. So, sitting there in the same alien-scanned space, completely immersed in a new world of all-encompassing sensory experiences: violence, blasting noise, a pounding electro sound track and the spookiest of spooky images strobing through my mind as I played, I used to experience these funny turns. My hands would shake, my heart would pound and the shooting and violence and exploding and cursed living dead would quite literally get to me. Shivering on the verge of hallucinations, I would have to stop and go outside into the wet, green garden and jump up and down to try to work off what I assumed was a burst adrenalin valve.
‘Dead Eyes Opened’ was probably one of the first properly electronic songs I was ever into and I think this little story might go some way to explaining what it is that I like about electronic music: the fact that my ears and brain create their own story and feelings and images to go with the music. Like the shapes and movements your mind produces when you experience a taste or a smell. (Franz)
If you’ve got a story about a song you’d like to share, even if you’ve done one before, please email me, thanks
23 responses so far ↓
1 squib // Aug 29, 2008 at 10:13 am
Interesting glimse into the life of a teenage male!
What I want to know is, was your room REALLY haunted?
2 franzy // Aug 29, 2008 at 11:26 am
Who said anything about haunted? I just used to sit there to imagine aliens (which I’m not sure count as haunting) and then while playing Doom I used to get those turns because I was just a sweet, bookish lad who had never been allowed computer games before getting audio-visual equivalent of a few bottles too many of Red Bull and cordial.
Even as a kid I used to hear ghostly noises coming from that big cold room at the back of the old house and know that they were made by wind breezing past the 1920s airvents.
3 warthog // Aug 29, 2008 at 11:31 am
I’m too old to appreciate all the references.
Apart from, Veruca Salt : Seether…I love that song.
4 squib // Aug 29, 2008 at 11:42 am
The reason I asked is because a house I lived in as a child had a spooky atmosphere and I used to lie awake listening to noises and one night the big window fell out of its frame into a thousand pieces and I screamed my head off (no band pun intended)
5 lill // Aug 29, 2008 at 11:43 am
great story franzy. I moved to the UK in 1993 so never got to experience the second edition of JJJ’s top 100. I did stay up all night and record the first edition when they played it on r-r-r-rage. unfortunately I lost the tapes in one of my many house moves over the years. they were gems.
6 Michael Lee // Aug 29, 2008 at 1:24 pm
They aren’t proud of the fact that the Hottest 100 CD volume 1 has Ace Of Base on it at Triple J
7 franzy // Aug 29, 2008 at 7:19 pm
warthog - I’m naively hoping that you’ll Wikipedia any mysteries and ask here for the rest!
Squib - Sounds like that house was haunted … by workmanship!
lill - I think the Hottest 100 is only ever relevant for years during which you’ve actually been a regular listener to JJJ. All subsequent H100s just result in you sitting around complaining about how Kids These Days Have No Taste In Music.
Michael - Ahhh … I always rated AoB.
8 squib // Aug 29, 2008 at 7:32 pm
“haunted … by workmanship!”
lol! Yep
9 Michael Lee // Aug 29, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Hey, I’m quite happy to back up “It’s a Beautiful Life” and it’s quite strange Lincraft version - but I interviewed a Triple J DJ once about the biggest stuff up in Triple J history, and that’s what he went with…Ace Of Base on the Hottest 100 Vol 1 CD
10 franzy // Aug 29, 2008 at 11:49 pm
D’OH!!!!
“poor” workmanship
I’m haunted … by the ghosts of poor proofreading …
11 lill // Aug 30, 2008 at 9:09 am
I thought the first couple of JJJ top 100’s never made it to cd? The first couple were best songs ever weren’t they, rather than best of the last year. I seem to remember Stairway to Heaven getting a guernsey in the first one (didn’t Nirvana win it?).
I may well be wrong though, being old and all that.
Having a teenage daughter and living out in the land that radio forgot, we do listen to JJJ a fair bit. When there’s nothing on radio national that is.
12 Michael Lee // Aug 30, 2008 at 10:28 am
Yeah, the first 3 were won by The Smiths, The Smiths and then Nirvana I think (not sure, that’s how I remember it) - How Soon Is Now seems to be in the memory banks…and then they had Volume 1 on CD, in 94, won by Denis Leary
Ace Of Base and Gabrielle made Volume 1, Alanis made the 100 in Volume 2, but not the CD - #3 was Coolio. The wacky mid 90s funsters (I voted for Custards Apartment in 95, so I can’t talk).
13 lill // Aug 31, 2008 at 12:12 am
OK so do we call the first three ‘volume minus one’ etc.?
The one Nirvana won I remember had about 500 Cure songs in it.
And I have the Gabrielle album from that year…only ’cause I really loved that song she did with East 17 (*shuffles away, realising all music cred is now flushed away like so much used toothpaste)
14 franzy // Aug 31, 2008 at 12:23 am
Don’t worry lill, I recently admitted liking Timbaland to a seriously cool thirteen-year-old .
http://franzy-writing.blogspot.com/2008/02/music-proof-that-nobody-is-ever-cool.html
15 Michael Lee // Aug 31, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I think the first three were “the greatest songs of all time” hottest 100s, if for no other reason than when you could win a spot guest programming Rage, they kept saying the one Denis Leary won was the first Hottest 100, the other 3 were just “the Hottest 100 prequels”
Whatever happened to Gabrielle? Last I heard of East 17, they all bought a supermarket together and worked in it…
Remember that girl who won? God she annoyed me…
16 lill // Aug 31, 2008 at 10:45 pm
franzy, I only recently realised that timbaland and justin timberlake are not related.
michael, I don’t remember the girl who won I’m afraid. it’s worth visiting gabrielle’s wiki page, sounds like she has had it tough. east 17 are still regularly heard in my bathroom…
17 squib // Sep 1, 2008 at 10:34 am
Lill I thought the same thing about Timbaland until I saw Franzy’s link and googled it
18 rob // Sep 1, 2008 at 12:07 pm
jjj volume 2 is the benchmark as anyone over 30 will, probably, agree: Fade Into You, Your Ghost, Laid, Time Bomb (well I liked it), Closer, Berlin Chair.
Dare I say they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
I started skipping Dead Eyes Open fairly early on in the piece though.
Isn’t Timbaland a brand of adventure clothing?
19 Michael Lee // Sep 1, 2008 at 7:22 pm
She sent in an entry to the competition which was basically a cut and paste of the Jeff Buckley review on the Triple J homepage, and then she picked the Clouds on her Rage selection…nothing…
I remember hearing something about her husband…as for East 17, I recommend their appearance on one of the Smash Hits videos, in which they appear on a couch surrounded by men dressed as Beefeaters…and then sing West End Girls…
20 lill // Sep 1, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Squib, I’m glad I’m not the only one who is way out of the loop.
Rob, I have to admit I’m not familair with many of those, although I do like Berlin Chair. in my defence I left Aust for the UK for eight years at the end of 1994.
Michael, if that’s all you have to do to host Rage then when is it my turn??? it would definately feature East 17 doing House of Love, and some dorky dancing.
21 Perseus // Sep 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Early 90’s somewhere, I saw Severed Heads play at the Sarah Sands in Brunswick with heaps of video screens everywhere, and after the gig we jumped in someone’s car, snorted lines of speed and raced across town to watch Spiderbait at the Tote. Ah those were the days. My stomach was flat, there was no hair coming out of my shoulders and I was yet to be consumed by my overwhelming fear of death.
22 Michael Lee // Sep 2, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I’m sure her name and her playlist is still buried in the Rage website archives…I really hold a grudge against her and her Jeff Buckley swooning (gee, not cliched) - mind you, fair play to her for winning, but I’m bitter my involved e-mail about The Proclaimers (I was shooting for the irony vote) and a ghost story didn’t get up…
I’d probably have picked stupid clips in hindsight anyway, Sidewinder or summat…
23 lill // Sep 2, 2008 at 10:52 pm
oh I think we could still all pick a few stupid clips. wouldn’t that be more fun than being cool?
I didn’t realise spiderbait had been around so long. I saw ed kuepper at the SS (I think it was the SS anyway) in the early 90s. gosh I’d forgotten how much I adored him. glad you reminded me.
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