Southern Gothic

I don’t go out of my way to be scared. I studiously avoid horror films or anything with heightened violence, nail-biting suspense, or undue existential dread.I don’t do amusement park rides or get a kick out of being in a car doing more than seventy. If, by the slim chance that I ever crave the sweet pain of low-impact anxiety, I can get it riding the subway at any given moment.

So it’s no surprise that I elected to miss the HBO series True Blood, an acclaimed project populated by the undead and dripping with unease, Southern style. But I have to give it up for the team that selected the accompanying music. Judging from the curated choices that abound on its soundtrack albums, the producers of True Blood obviously had pretty good taste.

Allen Toussaint’s “From a Whisper to a Scream” is the kind of terror I can get behind. No blood is involved, no otherworldly shiver. Emotional torment, however, is another story. Paced by a slow groove oozing with ominous funk, Toussaint, his confidential vocal brilliantly double-tracked for increased chills, relates a dark tale of romantic horror. Paranoia mingles with the admission of neglect, (“I took kindness for granted, as if it came with the wallpaper”), all culminating in regret. Screwing up your love life, your eyes half closed until it’s too late, that’s a kind of horror that’s all too real— no vampires necessary.

“From a Whisper to a Scream” was originally found on the 1971 Scepter Records album Toussaint. I’ve always heard intimations of Prince when listening to this mesmerizing track, and it would come as little surprise if I discovered that the Minneapolis polymath did his share of early listening to the New Orleans master. Genius attracts genius.