"The Way" by Fastball

I've always found this song unsettling. It's subject matter is disturbing and yet, it's insanely catchy. For those who don't know the back story, Fastball's front man, Tony Scalzo, was inspired to write "The Way" after hearing about an elderly couple who disappeared on the way to a local Texas festival. Their bodies were found two days later, in Arkansas, nowhere near where they were supposed to be. No one really knows what happened. The general assumption is that, due to issues with their memories, they got disoriented on the trip and came to a tragic end in a ditch. The story is haunting for so many reasons. This was Scalzo's romanticized take on the incident. He imagined that one morning, they woke up and decided to take off - like when they were young. No cares in the world. They got in their car and just drove for as long as they could. Without telling anyone their plans. But can you imagine how frightening that was for their family? I can, which is why I can't imagine ever doing anything like that on purpose. If I disappear, something is wrong. Very wrong.

You can see their shadows

Wandering off somewhere

They won't make it home

But they really don't care

They wanted the highway

They're happy there today, today

I think the thing that creeps me out most is this story really happened. It's a common tactic for marketing horror movies, to say it was based on a true story. It's effective, because it plays on people's deepest fear - that their darkest imaginings, the worst case scenario they've built up in their head, is not as ridiculous as they've been led to believe. For example, "The Strangers," which is based on a French film, "Ils" (Translation: "They"). In both these films, the protagonists - who are new to the area - are terrorized by local children. That's the twist at the end of these films - the monsters playing with them are children. These film are an amalgamation of actual crimes that happened in America and France, where people's homes are broken into and vandalized while they were at home. In some cases, the victims were murdered. Like all urban legends, there's a tiny grain of truth in these cautionary tales and that's what makes them scary. It could happen. I knew a guy who it happened to. Norman Bates in "Psycho" and Buffalo Bill in "The Silence of the Lambs" were based on Ed Gein. And one of the most chilling short stories I've ever read - "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates - is about the Pied Piper of Tucson, Charles Schmid. There's no shortage of inspiration, if that's where your mind is going to go.

I, for one, lost my taste for "based on a true story" type shows a long time ago. I watched a lot of "Law & Order: SVU" and "Criminal Minds" when I was younger, as a budding amateur psychologist. After I became a mom, watching those shows made me sick to my stomach, because they were too true to life. I know all the statistics. At any given moment, there is between 25 and 50 active serial killers in the United States (for some reason, we have a disproportionately high number of serial killers). When I hear a news story about a lost child, my brain automatically runs the numbers - if it's been more than 24 hours, the child is probably dead. More than likely, it was one of their relatives...and a sickening number of times, the perpetrator is one of their parents. And I just can't even. Monsters are real. Give me ghost stories any day - the real world is way more scary than Cthulhu and Baba Yaga ever could be.

"The Way" Video