Creepy - Day 11 - 1000 Kings

Episode Date: December 2, 2017

Where were you when you first heard it? Do you still hear it? Do you want to hear it? The song gets inside and doesn't let go. What secrets does it hold?***Please consider supporting the podcast at Patreon.com/Creepypod***Music composed by Steve Blizin***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode of creepy is presented by patrons Jacqueline Kina and Curtis Johnson. This podcast is made possible by our patrons. Creating daily episodes isn't easy, but I love doing it. Please consider supporting this podcast by visiting patreon.com slash creepypod. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy possible. and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened

or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy Presents The Bad Days

Day 11 1,000 Kings credited to user Horace Hawley. 1,000 Kings was the name that eventually stuck. In the early 80s it had a bunch of different names. In darkness, love eclipsed, even the poor thing. But gradually the idea that there were a thousand original copies made it into the water supply, and one by one the alternative titles fell out of use.

By 88, everyone knew about the song referred to as a thousand kings. It was infectious. Not bubblegum pop infectious. Viral infectious. The song wasn't on everyone's lips. Just the unfortunate few who heard it. They didn't know they were unfortunate, but they knew the song was special.

And they didn't share. I remember the first time I heard it. I was listening to Wham. The detail I used to change for whatever company I was in. Dylan, Metallica, Sex Pistols, Simon and Garfunkel, anyone, but Wham. But now I own it. Wham was awesome. Point of the digression is to illustrate that song could show up on any album, any genre, any label, any era.

Sometimes the song would show up on brand new releases, sometimes on decades-old classics. But it was always recorded over the third track. There were copycats, of course. Anyone could do an overdub. But the original thousand came from factory sealed cassettes. I know this for certain. I broke the seal on my copy of WAMS Fantastic. It was annoying at first.

It replaced a love machine, which was a big deal at the time. But something about the song made it stick. I remember going back for a re-listen as soon as I finished Side A. On a technical level, the recording was pretty amateurish, probably recorded in a basement with wood panel walls and shade carpeting. So bad you couldn't make out most of the words, but you knew that they were important, that they meant something. Something that stuck with you.

The melody would just run on repeat in your mind, and the lyrics you could make out were literally haunting. The song would be on the soundtrack of your daydreams. and your nightmares. When word first got out, most people assumed it was some kind of unsigned band looking to get noticed. But no one claimed responsibility. Some people would swear that they had heard the song before,

crooned in a Las Vegas piano bar, destroyed in a punk dive in some basement in Milwaukee. Others were sure it was a folk song, hundreds of years old maybe. But no one ever found anything to back that up besides Vegas. stories like I remember my grandma singing it to me as a kid or it was a poem from a story about a talking bird but ultimately the origins didn't really matter everyone heard it was hooked whether it was the melody the chorus or just a

feeling that you were part of something exclusive the song was addictive addictive to the point of unsettling you were fine if your copy was intact But listening, rewinding, and re-listening played havoc with fidelity, and more with the tape if you weren't careful. By the time I realized I should make a copy, mine was pretty bad, but it worked. I made three, and I hid them carefully. Conspiracy theories abounded. It was the 80s, after all, in a cryptic song, secretly dispersed across hundreds of random cassettes, and fit right in with Quincy Punks, heavy metal, and dungeons and dragons.

While Thousand Kings never gained attraction to the satanic panic, it continues to endure years later, gaining new life every time a tape with the recording resurfaces. There were stories about what happened when you were separated from the song. Newspaper articles about people wasting away in their parents' basements or even worse, starving to death if they lived alone. Those that did recover spoke of inescapable dreams that constantly scratched at the brain. Sometimes the dreams were infinite, floating through a vast cosmos populated by giant monsters with teeth protruding from their slavering mouths.

Sometimes they were claustrophobic, confined to a single room, decorated with sinister patterns that repeated like iron bars that poisoned the mind. But always there was darkness. an unseen shadow that hovered just outside perception, threatening to make itself known. A darkness, deliberate, purposeful, and mocking. It never got that bad for me. By the time the dreams started happening, I knew what was going on. And there were no horrifying revelations, just the inescapable truth that one thing could stave off the dreams.

The same thing that caused them. Listening to that song again was the only thing that would quell the nightmares. It was like lighting a fire that you knew would draw wolves. Then swinging a flaming brand around like a madman to keep them at bay. Some say that the song is a message. Others that it's some kind of trap. I don't even wonder anymore. I just know that the dreams will still come at night.

The darkness still threatens. I've learned to live with it. I just keep making copies. For more information, including pictures and videos of the stories told on this podcast, or to suggest stories for future episodes, please visit us at CreepyPod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. All stories told on this podcast can be found at CreepyPod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. All stories told on this podcast can be found at CreepyPyPy.

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