“Curse Of The Witches”

“Curse Of The Witches” is the fifth song on Strawberry Alarm Clock’s 1968 album Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow. By far the longest track on the album, it’s arguably the most adventurous and certainly the most epic in scope.

The song boasts some of the most unusual sonic excursions ever undertaken by the band. “Curse Of The Witches” is the centerpiece of the album, with a daring grandness and highly idiosyncratic subject matter. Whatever else may happen on Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow, this unbelievable seven minutes of sludge and gloom leaves a lingering aftertaste. Even the sunny pop songs that surround it can’t fully exorcise the demons.

The track opens with a simple militaristic drum beat, slowly increasing in tempo (and becoming just a long drum roll) as a single organ note fades slowly in over it. The true excitement starts when the band suddenly erupts in full. A dark, fuzzy bass clouds the scene with gloomy, half-hearted swipes beside a prominent xylophone sound.

Ah, that xylophone! Actually there is one in each speaker. And thanks to them, the intro of “Curse Of The Witches” is extremely psychedelic. The xylophones clump uneasily up and down the scales, at odds with each other, both soaked in echo. They actually manage to unhinge the track from the relatively reliable bass and drums. If you concentrate on the song’s beat, you’ll be distracted by the xylophones; if you concentrate on the xylophones, you might lose it altogether.

But if you stay with it, here come the vocals: mournful voices crying and pleading “Why? Why? Whyyyy?” Yes, it’s another somber, painful dirge from these otherwise purveyors of groovy psych-pop. “It was twenty-one years ago…” begins the lyric, and the story is spun; be forewarned, it ain’t pretty.

The story of “Curse Of The Witches”

The narrator’s family has been accused of having Satanic elements within it – “proved and condemned by the Quakers and Puritans”. It takes place around the time of the Salem witch trials in the seventeenth century.

The singer’s mother is burned at the stake by the rabid religious followers. As awful as that is, the young narrator can at least take solace in his belief that the mob has been satisfied, and the family is now in the clear.

Not so fast. He grows up, gets married and has a child of his own. One day his six-year old daughter argues with a schoolmate and flippantly wishes him dead – and the next day, he does indeed drop dead. Whether this is by chance or by actual demonic power, the people of the town are (predictably) moved to burn the little girl at the stake.

Despite the vociferous cries and objections of both parents, a dubious judge is unmoved and the parents realize they have no choice. Even when confronted by their confused, incredulous daughter, all they can do is watch.

Here, the same jarringly peppy music from the mother’s demise – “she was sentenced by her accusers to be secretly burned to the stake ’til death comes” – is repeated. What a chillingly inappropriate leitmotif!

Musically, there is then a brief guitar and xylophone solo. But, oddly, the fuzzy guitar blends almost imperceptibly into the background in support of the louder xylophone, rather than the other way around. The effect is off-putting. (This is a great headphones song.)

Things don’t get any more cheery from here on out. After the death of the daughter, the narrator’s wife dies of grief, and having thus lost his last friend in the world, he finds that “the love I had for the town had completely turned to hate”. He turns his back on God and his religion.

The narrator’s fate is somewhat unclear, as he either leaves town, stays and lives the rest of his days in lonely misery, or kills himself. All we know is that he says, “I knew I would leave”, which in former verses served as a euphemism for death. Whatever actually happens (and it’s probably the unfortunate last option, as evidenced by the emergence yet again of the heartlessly buoyant death leitmotif) the final lyrics are:

“Living hurts so much I can’t take it
To be happy I’ll have to wait
‘Til death comes”

And that’s the end.

The music on “Curse Of The Witches”

Dense and repetitive, there is nothing at all uplifting or happy about “Curse Of The Witches”. The only time the music takes a break from brooding is during a brief period in the beginning when the man grows up and gets married (and things seem like they just might work out after all, for a few hopeful seconds).

The death scenes’ juxtaposition of happy music and horrifying lyrics only serves to further the aural unrest. Certain words and phrases are also repeated, most effectively when the “why? why?” cries from the intro creep back when the daughter is burned alive. This repetition gives the song a kind of cruel inescapable feel, mirroring the melancholic dead zone of the protagonist’s psyche.

“Curse Of The Witches” follows “They Saw The Fat One Coming” on Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow, and the two songs serve as quite the wicked duo. Fortunately, for music fans who are into this sort of thing, they are also two of the most fantastic examples of dark psych from the 60s, replete with an unreal sense of time, references to death and Satanism and the supernatural, and transportatively psychedelic instrumentation.

“Curse Of The Witches” appears on…

Somehow, despite being an obviously major recording by Strawberry Alarm Clock, “Curse Of The Witches” has not shown up on any compilations.

Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow (1968)