Many have commented on the fact that Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon synchronizes strangely with MGM's classic film, The Wizard of Oz. A similar bit of synchronicity links the Cherry Popping Daddies' 1998 hit single "Zoot Suit Riot" with the Black Mass sequence from Benjamin Christensen's 1922 silent film, Witchcraft Through the Ages (Haxan).
I discovered this weird phenomenon in 1998 when my wife and I held a Hallowe'en Party. We had gone all-out, decorating the house and even using inexpensive replicas of early twentieth century Halloween post cards we'd bought in Salem, Massachusetts as invitations. I also wanted a musical tape for the event.
I set our VCR to record random samples of the Halloween Specials and horror movies that haunt the tube during the weeks before All Hallow's Eve. Then, while completing other work, I rigged a CD player and a couple of VCRs to combine the images from this source tape and other videos with a cross-section of musical samples. Occasionally, I interrupted the process to add actual music videos broadcast by MuchMusic to the mix. The end product was a four-hour tape that could be played for a portion of the event, providing background music with a video decoration. Most of the results were pretty nonsensical, but one amazed us.
The
Black Mass sequence from the unedited
Witchcraft Through the Ages and the Daddies' song play out as follows:
Song: drum beat introduction
Video: A
witch rubbing another with mystic ointment, seemingly in time to the percussion.
Song: Horns begin.
Video: Fade to witches in flight.
Song: "Who's that whispering in the trees?"
Video: Fade to a nude woman in a tree, watching the witches fly by.
Song and images continue.
Song: "Blow, daddy!"
Video: Cut to
demon playing a horn.
Other matches:
Brief drum solo during which a demon emerges from a doorway beating a drum.
An animated horse's skeleton, seemingly moving in time to the music.
Trampling of holy artefacts and flogging of a witch, more or less to the beat.
The entire sequence lasts the length of the song; the music fades as a demon engaged in an act of masturbation and a devil embracing a witch disappear, replaced by the Inquisitors looking with prurience and shock at the crone who has been relating this fantasy at their request.
To duplicate this effect, it is important to begin the song just as the sequence begins, with a witch rubbing ointment on another's back. Be warned (if it is not already obvious), that the film contains controversial imagery and was often banned, or available only in bowdlerized versions, for much of the twentieth century. If you are young or easily offended, approach it with caution, or not at all.
I informed the band of this weird coincidence through e-mail, but never have received a reply.