John Wayne Gacy is why people fear clowns. The kind, unassuming family man who occasionally dressed up as Pogo The Clown for local children’s parties ended up being a horrific mass murderer, responsible for the kidnapping, rape, and death of at least 33 young boys. Clearly, such a butcher would get a ton of music written about him, usually of the loud and angry variety.
Then you have Sufjan Stevens, a quirky pop singer with song titles like “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!” Somehow, he was able to drop his goofy sense of humor and write a song about one of the most prolific serial killers in history. “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” is a shockingly gentle and poignant ballad, one that focuses more on Gacy’s childhood and ability to charm anybody he met than on the few dozen people he tortured to death
The song ends with the chilling line “And in my best behavior, I am really just like him.” As much as we don’t like to think about it, psychopathic murderers are human and grew up the exact same way of any of us were. They didn’t hatch out of a flaming shell, fully grown and fully evil—at one point or another, they truly were just like us
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His father was a drinker
And his mother cried in bed
Folding John Wayne's t-shirts
When the swingset hit his head
The neighbors, they adored him
For his humor and his conversation
Look underneath the house there
Find the few living things, rotting fast
In their sleep all were dead
Twenty-seven people, even more
They were boys, with their cars
Summer jobs, Oh my God
Are you one of them?
He dressed up like a clown for them
With his face paint white and red
And on his best behavior
In a dark room on the bed he kissed them all
He'd kill ten thousand people
With a slight of his hand, running far, running fast to the dead
He took off all their clothes for them
He put a cloth on their lips, quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth
And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid
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