Grieve America (2002) – Dame Darcy

If Winona Ryder’s character Lydia in Beetlejuice had composed a requiem for the victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, it would likely materialize as “Grieve America.” Amidst discernable tape hiss, souls lost on that day sound a discombobulated dirge: an off-kilter organ in the left channel; an eerie piano in the right; a pair of ghostly female voices dead center. None share the same key or tempo . . . as if the spirits each wish to tender their own elegy. Even from beyond the grave, anti-Bush sentiment lingers: “The President came to the site / and, standing on my hand, / chanted for the U.S.A. / but doesn’t love our land.” In what appears to be the soundtrack for a morose child’s slapdash bedroom haunted house, a sound effects record crackles out its tracks in sequence: A door creak. A faint organ. Menacing laughter. A spooky slide whistle. Distant thunder. Footsteps. Cracking glass. Absolute silence abruptly follows, as if a soul is passing to the other side. A wolf howls. Maniacal laughter is abruptly cut off as the needle reaches the inner groove. Yet, rather than come off as amateurish, such inchoateness effectuates the haunting manifestation of lives that were extinguished prematurely.

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See also "Witchcraft Tips" (2002).