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Paranoia Fuel / Music

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  • The girl in "Somebody's Eyes" by Karla Bonoff is paranoid that the ex-girlfriend is watching her and the boy she broke up with.
  • "Subway Song" by The Cure. Especially if you are a woman and you have to walk anywhere by yourself at night. Turn around.
  • "Intruder" by Peter Gabriel has the narrator give a near-whisper delivery about the means of breaking into homes. The song even gets bookended by glass cutter sounds.
  • The Genesis song "The Day The Light Went Out", a song about The End of the World as We Know It, in which something arrives here and puts out the light... and then, it prepares to feed...
    When they went to bed that night no one would have believed
    That in the morning, light would not be there
    The dark hung heavy on the air like the grip of a jealous man
    No place was there known to have been spared
    Then panic took control of minds and fear hit everyone
    The day the light went out of the daytime sky.
  • The Geto Boys' classic song My Mind's Playing Tricks on Me is a very disturbing song of paranoia and Schizophrenia.
  • Thriller by Michael Jackson. Just watch the ending of the music video with the close up on his demonic face, combined with his "this is not an occult video" message at the beginning.
  • "Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell has this trope as its general theme.
    • Which led to its use in a 2008-09 series of GEICO commercials (the version used in the commercials is a remix by Mysto and Pizzi), where your money is watching you. With a big bug-eyed stare.
  • Tin Hat's cover of "Daisy Bell" turns a charming turn-of-the-century love song into a softly-voiced stalker's fantasy.
  • The track "Faaip di Oiad" on the tool album Lateralus. It sounds like a desperate, last-ditch final broadcast by someone who has discovered a number of terrifying things: Aliens are here. They've been here for a while. They've infiltrated many areas of the government and military. They have plans for this planet. And they're coming to get me because I know the truth.
    • The name itself means something like "Voices of your God" in Enochian ("Angelic"). Eep.
    • The pAper chAse's version-less Ministry and more Penderecki-2 versions, respectively titled It's Out There and it's Gonna Get You (which introduces We Know Where You Sleep) and We Will Make One of Us (one of their most upbeat tracks, leading into the track The House is Alive & The House Is Hungry.)
    • Even more chilling is that the lyrics are a recording of a former Area 51 employee calling Coast to Coast AM, a radio show hosted at the time by Art Bell. It could be fake, the guy could be a great actor pretending to have vital information so horrific it causes him to break down and sob, and it could have been a satellite error that caused the radio station to go off the air. But we'll never know, will we?
    • Another tool song, Lost Keys, seems to fit perfectly with Faaip de Oiad. The instrumentals don't clash, and the lyrics of Lost Keys start just after Faaip de Oiad's cut off.
  • Tom Waits' "What's He Building In There?" from Mule Variations defines this trope, musically; it's never made entirely clear whether the narrator of the song is just an over-paranoid and unstable person fixating on some innocent and harmless (if slightly reclusive and unconventional) neighbour, or whether the neighbour actually is up to something very sinister indeed...
  • "Every Breath You Take" by The Police on the surface appears to be a sweet, soft rock song - until one listens to the lyrics closely. "I'll be watching you..."
  • Queensrÿche's Gonna get close to you. It's the 80's prog-metal version of Every Breath You Take — only not nearly so subtle.
  • Second Lives by Vitalic. Or rather, the video, where a camera is observing the users of a bathroom stall and at the end Vitalic comes in and picks up his camera.
  • Judging from the lyrics, the song "Lost Northern Star" on Tarja's solo album after her falling-out with Nightwish is probably supposed to be about a guardian angel. But when you actually hear it, it comes across more like it's about Slender Man.
  • "The Wilderness Downtown", AKA the music video for "We Used To Wait", might make you slightly worried about your house being under surveillance. This is because it shows you surveillance photos of your house. Seriously.
    • Mitigated somewhat by it only being Google Earth, but this doesn't make it any less of a Tear Jerker.
  • "Papercut" by Linkin Park:
    It's like I'm paranoid, looking over my back
    It's like a whirlwind inside of my head
    It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
    It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin
  • "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" by They Might Be Giants.
    • And for that matter, "The Bells are Ringing" and "The Statue Got Me High"
    • The band generally loves this trope. There's at least one example in every album that isn't specifically made for kids - see the band's page for the ever-growing list.
  • Does the song in PS2's The Thing called After Me by Saliva qualify?
  • Planetary (Go) by My Chemical Romance begins with 'There might be something outside your window, but you'll just never know'. Actually, the whole album and much of the promotional material are based around this trope.
  • "Eye In The Sky" by The Alan Parsons Project:
    I am the eye in the sky, looking at you,
    I can read your mind.
    I am the maker of rules, dealing with fools,
    I can cheat you blind.
    And I don't need to see any more to know that
    I can read your mind (looking at you)
    I can read your mind (looking at you)
    I can read your mind (looking at you)
    I can read your mind.
  • Man, listen to the lyrics of "I Will Possess Your Heart" by Death Cab for Cutie (or, for that matter, just the title).
    There are days when outside your window
    I see my reflection as I slowly pass,
    and I long for this mirrored perspective
    when we'll be lovers, lovers at last.
    • Then, later:
      You reject my advances and desperate pleas
      I won't let you let me down so easily
  • Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage".
    The Lunatic is in my head
    There's someone in my head, but it's not me...
  • The ironically titled "Nothing to Fear" by Oingo Boingo: "Hey, baby, let me give you some advice / The Russians are gonna pulverize us in our sleep tonight." And if they don't get you, then Arab terrorists will. And if they don't get you, a lonely old man in a brand-new car will give you candy or ice cream before getting you wired on cocaine and then raping you. And if he doesn't get you, then one of countless other things - Christianity, television, etc. - will just sap your will and warp your mind. Now go to sleep...
  • Judas Priest's "Night Crawler." A giant carnivorous worm from Hell can slither into your house, and it will see you in the dark.
    • Electric Eye. You are being closely monitored and documented by a satellite. Always. You cannot see your surveyor watching or even know that it's watching but it's there, and if you do even one thing out of line it will not only see it but it will document it.
  • Ben Folds' song "From Above" provides the lovely little notion that you have only one true soul mate and you can pass by her/him every day without ever thinking about it. And you'll never truly be happy without him/her.
  • "Muthufukka" by Beck: "Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker!"
  • Rammstein's 'Stein um Stein' (which translates to 'stone by stone') starts off relatively unassuming, with the narrator informing someone he's going to build them a house... a house without windows or doors, where 'no light gets in'. Yep, he's going to wall them up and leave them to die. Sweet dreams.
  • Iron Maiden's "Fear of the Dark" is all about what could be hidden in the darkness...
    Have you ever been alone at night
    Thought you heard footsteps behind?
    And turned around and no one's there
    And as you quicken up your pace
    You find it hard to look again
  • Turn Around, Look at Me by The Vogues gives you this feeling. It was featured in Final Destination 3, played for this trope in particular.
    There is someone
    Walking behind you
    Turn around
    Look at me...
  • Viktor Tsoi's "Sledi za Soboy" invokes this trope: it's a song about all the myriad ways death can suddenly strike, and it encourages the listener to be Properly Paranoid with the refrain of "Do watch yourself, be wary and cautious..."
  • Eiffel 65's debut album Europop includes a track entitled "Too Much of Heaven." The song's chorus repeatedly says that Heaven can always turn around, and closes with the line, "the killer makes no sound." Who - or more disturbingly, what - is "the killer?" Because you're sure there's someone there.
  • The Songdrops song "Tarantulas" is about tarantulas and how they could be anywhere, even on your head and how they "don't bite unless [they sense fear], so just stay calm until it's gone in a year." Slightly nullified if you know tarantulas can't hurt humans, but there's still the "if there's just fuzz where your hamster was, it's probably because of tarantulas" line.
  • King Crimson's Sleepless: it's about fear, paranoia and nightmares, so it naturally counts as this, but the crazed bassline, creepy guitar sounds, droning synths and Adrian Belew's vocals just adds up to it. Don't listen to it with the lights out.

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