It seems rock and metal musicians are incredibly fascinated by crime, as there are many rock and metal songs that were inspired by real crimes that have been committed throughout history.
True crime has always been a popular topic, but thanks to the prevalence of social media and podcasts, it’s bigger now than ever. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill actually shared an article on why people are so intrigued by true crime.
“It’s escapism and entertainment,” Patricia L. Bryan, a professor of law at UNC said. “It speaks to why people go into haunted houses or ride a roller coaster. There’s something about facing danger when it’s not real, it’s not personal. People like to be scared or like to see the dark recesses of someone’s mind. Some people would say it helps us prepare for the violence in our own lives.”
READ MORE: 5 Rock + Metal Musicians Who Were Convicted of Murder
So no, we’re not all a bunch of sickos for liking it — or liking songs about it.
It’s common for musicians to write songs about current events and the happenings of the world around them. But a lot of rock and metal bands went deep into history and created music about crimes that took place centuries ago.
Scroll below to read about the songs and the crimes they were based off of.
Warning: Some of the stories below contain graphic and disturbing content.
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Ozzy Osbourne, “Bloodbath in Paradise”
“Bloodbath in Paradise,” which appears on Ozzy Osbourne’s fifth album No Rest for the Wicked, was written about the Charles Manson Family murders that took place in 1969.
“Charlie and the family” are referenced in the second line of the song and the psychopath’s Helter Skelter conspiracy is mentioned a few times throughout the track as well.
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Slayer, “Angel of Death”
Slayer have written a lot of songs that were inspired by notorious crimes, especially due to Jeff Hannemann’s fascinated with war crimes and atrocities. We went with “Angel of Death” for this one because it was inspired by horrific crimes carried out by Dr. Josef Mengele, and is also one of their most well-known songs.
Mengele was a member of the Nazi party in Germany while Adolf Hitler reigned and carried out inhumane medical experiments on inmates at Auschwitz amid the Holocaust. He did especially unspeakable things to twin children. His nickname is the one Slayer used for the title of the infamous Reign in Blood song.
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Slipknot, “The Chapeltown Rag”
Slipknot wrote a song inspired by the crimes of an English serial killer named Peter Sutcliffe for their most recent album The End, So Far (2022). Also known as the Yorkshire Ripper, Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven more in the late ’70s.
Corey Taylor got the idea for the song after watching a documentary about Sutcliffe. Because the killer was literally interviewed by authorities during the manhunt and was able to evade capture as long as he did, the Slipknot vocalist compared the situation to some of the negative things he sees in society and the media today.
“Lyrically, it’s coming from a point of talking about the various manipulations that can happen when social media meets media itself. And the different ways that these manipulations can try to pull us in different directions, in the fact that we’re all becoming addicts to it, which is very, very dangerous,” he told Revolver.
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Guns N’ Roses, “Double Talkin’ Jive”
Izzy Stradlin penned the lyrics for the Use Your Illusion I track “Double Talkin’ Jive” after a dismembered body was discovered in the dumpster near the studio where Guns N’ Roses were recording the album.
While no one in the band ever confirmed who was murdered, Ultimate Classic Rock noted a crime that occurred in 1990 that had an uncanny similarity to the opening line in the song — “Found a head and an arm in the garbage can.”
A pornographic actor named William Arnold Newton, who was best known as Billy London and Billy Porter, was murdered in Los Angeles in October of 1990. Dismembered parts of his body were found in a dumpster near Santa Monica Boulevard, which was near where Guns’ studio was — probably not a coincidence.
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Nirvana, “Polly”
Nevermind was the album that launched Nirvana’s career into another realm. Despite its crossover appeal, it still had some really dark moments, one of which was “Polly.” The song was written about the kidnapping, rape and torture of an unnamed 14-year-old girl by a serial rapist named Gerald Friend, according to American Songwriter.
The girl accepted a ride home from Friend after leaving a concert she attended with her friends in Tacoma, Washington in 1987. Fortunately, she was able to break free from him before things went any further.
Kurt Cobain wrote “Polly,” which he’d originally titled “Hitchhiker,” after reading about the incident in the newspaper.
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Rammstein, “Mein Teil”
Rammstein aren’t known for having songs about rainbows and butterflies, they’re almost always related to taboo subjects. But “Mein Tell” from Reise, Reise is about something especially sinister — the convicted cannibal Armin Meiwes.
This wasn’t a classic cannibalism case, if there is such a thing. Meiwes was a computer technician who literally advertised his horrific desires online,and met Bernd Brandes, an engineer who volunteered himself for the cause — to be eaten by Meiwes. [via The Guardian].
Meiwes initially cut off Brandes’ male parts and fried it for both of them to eat. The next day, he killed his victim, froze bits of his body and spent the next few defrosting and eating them.
“I always had the fantasy and in the end I fulfilled it,” Meiwes said during his trial.
“Eaten,” the 2004 song by Swedish death metal supergroup Bloodbath, is about the same subject as well.
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Exodus, “The Ballad of Leonard and Charles”
Exodus penned a song about a pair of serial rapists and murderers, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, for their 2010 album Exhibit B: The Human Condition. Lake and Ng were believed to have abducted, raped, tortured and murdered between 11 and 25 victims in a California cabin during the 1980s.
When Lake was arrested in ’85 for an unrelated charge, he swallowed cyanide pills that caused him to die a few days later. Ng, on the other hand, was convicted of 11 counts of capital murder.
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Venom, “Countess Bathory”
Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Ecsed, also known as the Bloody Countess, was a Hungarian noblewoman who was accused of torturing and killing hundreds of women and girl with her servants in the late 1500s and early 1600s. She was tried for the crimes and died after three years in prison.
Many different theories exist about the murders, what Bathory’s motives were and whether she was actually as savage as she was painted to be.
Regardless, Venom wrote a song about the story for their 1982 album Black Metal.
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The Cranberries, “I Just Shot John Lennon”
This one is pretty self-explanatory. The Cranberries wrote about the murder of John Lennon for their ’96 album To the Faithful Departed.
The former Beatle was fatally shot by Mark David Chapman — a fan of the band — in December of 1980.
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Suffocation, “Bind Torture Kill”
It checks out that death metal icons Suffocation wrote a song about Dennis Rader, also known as BTK — bind, torture, kill. The serial murderer killed at least 10 people in Kansas between the mid-’70s and early ’90s. He typically did exactly what his nickname stood for to his victims.
Not only did he do the horrible things he did, but he sent letters describing all of the murders in detail to the police and the media for years. He was finally arrested in 2005 and is in prison.
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Judas Priest, “The Ripper”
For their 1976 record Sad Wings of Destiny, Judas Priest authored a short but brilliant song about the notorious, unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper. The vicious killer targeted women in England in the late 1800s, cut their throats and then mutilated them.
It’s still unknown who he was to this day.
“The Ripper,” meanwhile, is one of Judas Priest’s most enduring ’70s songs and has been in regular setlist rotation throughout the decades.
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Blind Melon, “Skinned”
One of the softer offerings on this list, Blind Melon’s “Skinned,” from their second album Soup, was about the crimes of serial killer Ed Gein. Known as The Butcher of Plainfield. Based on the title of the song, you can imagine what Gein did to his victims.
When deputies went to check out Gein’s residence, they found clothing, bowls, a wastebasket, a corset and a pair of pants made out of human skin, as well as a plethora of other disturbing discoveries. He served as inspiration for a handful of fictional serial killers, including Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
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Jane’s Addiction, “Ted, Just Admit It…”
This one’s truly a peculiar song, but it was inspired by the one and only Ted Bundy. It even features an audio snippet from one of the killer’s last interviews before he was executed for his crimes.
Bundy confessed to the murders of 30 women before he died, though it’s believed that his victim count was actually higher.
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The Smiths, “Suffer Little Children”
Morrissey wrote about the infamous Moors Murders for The Smiths’ 1984 debut album. The series of murders were carried out in 1960s England on the Saddleworth Moor by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. The victims were five children and teenagers, a few of which were also sexually assaulted before they were killed.
A rather pleasant-sounding song for such a dark story.
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R.E.M., “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”
Here’s another instance where the title of the song is a direct reference to an event that took place, but the lyrics are meant to convey somewhat of a different message. In 1986, journalist and news anchor Dan Rather was attacked by a man who repeatedly said, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”
Rather didn’t make a big deal about the situation, and the assailant was identified as William Tager about 11 years after it happened. By then, different variations of the phrase had become somewhat of a meme and thus made its way into an R.E.M. song.
“I wrote that protagonist as a guy who’s desperately trying to understand what motivates the younger generation, who has gone to great lengths to try and figure them out,and at the end of the song it’s completely fucking bogus. He got nowhere,” Michael Stipe said in an interview [via Mental Floss].
