Ain't It Scary? with Sean & Carrie

[Obvious TW this week for discussion of suicide.]

Over the years, certain songs have attracted dark reputations. Reputations like that the songs might drive you mad enough to end your own life... or make others mad enough to end another's. This week, we discuss 3 famous examples of these "suicide songs": the morosely melancholic "Gloomy Sunday", the sinister legend of the Lavender Town Syndrome, and the very real rash of "My Way" murders, centered within Philippines karaoke culture.

Can a song really drive you to life-ending despair? Can a video game chiptune actually break your mind? And can one of the Chairman of the Board's most famous ditties really inspire murderous intentions in others? We try to find the answers in a decade-spanning journey from 1930s Hungary to Pokémon's Kanto Region to Filipino karaoke bars.

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Born in small-town Italy in 1893, Leonarda Cianciulli had led a hard and tragic life - but her friends and neighbors in Correggio, Reggio Emilia knew her as a kindly woman and a good neighbor. Naturally, they were all shocked when she was arrested for luring three local women to their violent deaths. 

Axe Murder March finishes with a bang (a whack?) as we find out why Cianciulli is known as the Soap-Maker of Correggio, and explore whether her murders really were, as she claimed, motivated by human sacrifice.

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This week, we finish our two-parter on the rise of the Norwegian black metal scene and the leaders of the pack, Mayhem, as the culture descends into edgelord-on-edgelord crime - first with a series of arsons across Norway, and eventually spinning into the inevitable end of chaos and murder.

Experience such real-life characters as Varg Vikernes, black metal musician and out-and-proud white supremacist-turned murderer; Euronymous, the (still-young) godfather of the Norwegian black metal scene and eventual victim; Faust, who killed a man just for kicks; and...Kanye West?

We also follow up on our News segment from last week, in which we give the public what they've surely been waiting for: an update on Kate-Watch.

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In the early 1990s, a series of crimes rocked the historically peaceful country of Norway. Churches were burned, home-grown terrorist plots were revealed, and arrests were made.

Then, the murders came.

This rash of crime all stemmed from one seemingly-innocuous source: Norwegian black metal bands and their fans. It seemed like these musicians were trying to out-edgelord each other, and no band pushed harder for the title of "Most Evil" than the fathers of Norwegian black metal, Mayhem, led by the charismatic Euronymous. But Euronymous would succumb to a tragic fate of his own - and one of his own bandmates would be the perpetrator of his death.

This week, we dive into the Scandinavian black metal scene to try and understand why such a peaceful country could spawn such a dark musical fandom...and how that fandom eventually worked itself into a self-perpetuating metal madness.

In our News segment, we also take a mini-dive into all the conspiracies surrounding Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales - and why she hasn't officially been seen in public in months.

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The raison d'etre for our whole series on Hannibal and the Punic Wars is here this week, and that's very bad news for 50,000 Roman soldiers.

After being beaten and humiliated by Hannibal for two years straight, the Romans came out swinging in 216 BC with the largest army the Republic had ever raised. Nearly 100,000 men chased the Carthaginian army to the small town of Cannae, which would become the site of the greatest military disaster in Rome's history - and one of those times and places in history Sean would least like to visit.

The Romans would eventually win the Second Punic War, and a few decades later would wipe Carthage off the map. But the most impressive thing they did in the whole conflict was to keep fighting after the crushing defeat at Cannae, Hannibal's most impressive victory.

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Welcome back to the dusty horrors of ancient warfare, in part 2 of our rapidly expanding series (well, to 3 episodes, anyway) on Hannibal and the Second Punic War!

It's 218 BC, and Hannibal just marched a whole army across the Alps to surprise the Romans in Italy. The next move is Rome's, and they've got all the wrong ones. We step into the shoes of Roman infantry as tens of thousands of our buddies are slaughtered on the field at the Trebia and Lake Trasimene, before Fabius the Delayer steps in to make things way more safe and boring.

But don't worry - Rome's boldest moves, and most abject horrors, are still to come. Also, Hannibal marches 50,000 more guys through a marsh full of poop.

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Sean has the podcast reins for two weeks of HANNIBAL. No, not the cannibal - the Carthaginian general who made himself the worst nightmare of the Roman legions.

Take a trip with us back to the third century B.C., where new horrors wait around every corner - from children sacrificed to ancient gods, to sieged cities starving behind their walls, to armored men tumbling off high alpine peaks. Oh, and a crapload of elephants.

Settle in for next week, because Hannibal is saving the worst for the Romans!

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This week, Carrie takes us on a trip back to the 1930s Mississippi Delta with the mysterious story of Robert Johnson, American blues icon and “first ever rock star.” Johnson has long been identified with the legend that he, desperate to become an incredible guitarist, went down to the crossroads one dark night and sold his soul to the Devil for musical glory. 

Did Johnson really make some kind of Faustian bargain with Satan himself? If not, how did he go from no-talent blues wannabe to musical virtuoso in just a few short months? And did the “hellhound on his trail” that dogged him throughout a life shadowed by tragedy drive him to his untimely end at the young age of 27? We try to answer some of these questions and more in this exploration of the darker roots of rock ‘n roll.

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Since at least the 16th century, the English counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex have told stories of "Black Shuck", a ghostly black dog who appears as an omen of death. But ol' Shuck isn't the only spectral hound going around portending doom in the British Isles!

In this episode, Sean takes us on a tour of Black Dog stories from folklore all over England and Great Britain, and tries to get to the bottom of how the best boys got stuck with such a creepy rap. Along the way we get lost in 19th century travel guides, check in with our old friend Odin and meet dog spirits from the mischievous Padfoot to the feared Barghest.

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On Christmas Eve, 1945, a mysterious fire burned the home of George and Jennie Sodder to the ground. George, Jennie, and four of their children escaped the blaze. The five remaining Sodder children, aged 5 to 14, were not so lucky. However, no remains - of any of the five Sodder children who were lost that night - were ever found.

As the years went on, it became clear there was a conspiracy of silence surrounding the Sodder case in their town of Fayetteville, West Virginia. Had George Sodder pissed off the wrong people with his anti-Mussolini rhetoric during WW2, making his Italian immigrant family a target for nefarious players...and perhaps even the Sicilian Mafia?

Did the five "lost" Sodder children even die in the fire at all, or - as the Sodder parents believed until their deaths - were they actually kidnapped, the fire being a mere "smokescreen" to hide the truth?

Carrie takes us through this bizarre, twisty-turny case, and tries to find some answers in the abyss of time and obfuscation.

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