In our latest true crime playlist on The Musical Hype, we explore 12 songs written about the infamous, unidentified, British serial killer, Jack the Ripper.

1. 12 Songs About Jack
the Ripper | Playlist
In our latest true crime playlist, we
explore 12 songs written about the
infamous, unidentified, British serial
killer, Jack the Ripper.

2. Introduction
• On The Musical Hype, we have a number of
evergreen/playlists, particularly playlists
compiling and providing commentary about songs
related to serial killers, mass murderers, and
the deviants of society.
• As scary, and arguably tasteless, as writing
music about such awful individuals might be,
there are plenty of them.
• Our latest installment of darkness explores one
of the most discussed and most mysterious
serial killers of them all, Jack the Ripper.

3. Jack the Ripper:
Brief Background
• Jack the Ripper is a breed of serial killer that’s
more mysterious than some.
• We never found out his identity; he was NEVER
caught.
• We do know he killed women, but not just any women
– prostitutes – the lowest members of society.
• There’s been plenty of speculation that another
serial killer, H.H. Holmes, was Jack the Ripper –
from Chicago, Illinois.
• This slideshow compiles 12 songs written about
Jack the Ripper.

4. 1. Judas Priest,“The Ripper”
Album: Sad Wings of Destiny, 1976
• Legendary English heavy metal band, Judas
Priest, performs “The Ripper” about Jack the
Ripper.
• The band superbly captures the frightening,
mysterious nature of the nameless terror of
London.
• “You’ll soon shake with fear / Never knowing if I’m
near / I’m sly and I’m shameless / Nocturnal and
nameless / Except for ‘The Ripper’ / Or if you like,
‘Jack the Knife.’”

5. 2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,“Jack the Ripper”
Album: Henry’s Dream, 1992
• “Jack the Ripper” concludes the 1992 studio
album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Henry’s
Dream.
• It’s a hellish joint with two characters: a
woman and a man.
• From the perspective of the narrator, the man,
the woman is horrible to the nth degree. This
is apparent from the jump:
• “I got a woman / She rules my house with an iron
fist.”

6. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,
“Jack the Ripper,”cont.
• “Jack the Ripper” also opens the door to
considering the narrator to be suspect.
• “She screams out Jack the Ripper / Every time I try
to give that girl a kiss.”
• “Jack the Ripper” can be interpreted a number
of different ways.
• It’s clear there’s an awful, dysfunctional
relationship, but is it merely the woman’s
fault, or is the narrator actually Jack the
Ripper?

7. 3. Morrissey,“Jack the Ripper”
Album: World of Morrissey, 1995
• “Jack the Ripper” isn’t the first musical
encounter Morrissey has experienced with serial
killers. Back in 1984, as the frontman of The
Smiths, he sang “Suffer Little Children,” a song
about Ian Brady & Myra Hindley.
• Lyrically, Morrissey eerily captures the
perversion of Jack. To his victim, The Ripper
says:
• “Crash into my arms / I want you / You don't agree / But
you don't refuse / I know you.”
• He continues on in darkness, asserting his
intentions for his victim. He seems to play up
the fact that she’s a prostitute, hence, she’s
“low on the totem pole.”

8. Morrissey,
“Jack the Ripper,” cont.
• He notes her tiredness, but the sleep he has in
mind is deadly.
• “And I know a place / Where no-one is likely to pass /
Oh, you don't care if it's late / And you don't care if
you're lost / And oh, you look so tired / But tonight
you've presumed too much / Too much, too much / And if
it's the last thing I ever do / I'm gonna get you.”
• Morrissey nails the stealth and invincibility of
Jack the Ripper.
• “And no one knows a thing about my life / I can come and
go as I please / If I want to I can stay / Or if I want
to I can leave / Nobody knows me, nobody knows me.”

9. 4. Benediction, “Down on Whores”
Album: The Dreams You Dread, 1995
• “Take the eyes, take the head, leave them all for dead!”
• What a statement British death metal band
Benediction makes about women, in the context of
serial killer Jack the Ripper and their song,
“Down on Whores.”
• To reiterate for the millionth time, the women
that Jack killed in 1888 were indeed prostitutes,
often referred to as whores. Throughout “Down on
Whores,” that exactly how Dave Ingram references
them too.
• “May comes and goes in the dark of the night / He kisses
the whores and gives them a fright / And the Doctors will
get all the blame / But it's only May playing his dirty
game.”

10. 4. Benediction,
“Down on Whores,”cont.
• Ingram and Benediction accurately reference
Jack writing about his crimes, even if his
identity was never revealed.
• “When I cut her / Kissed for a while/ Shall I write
and tell them / Peace of mind.”
• Unfortunately, there was no “peace of mind”
during the span of the murders.
• “Left her for dead / There was thrill / All whores
feel the shining knife.”

11. 5. Sigh, “In the Mind of a Lunatic”
Album: Scenario IV: Dread Dreams, 1999
• “Lunatic, you are just a maniac / Lunatic, on
thoughts you do react / Lunatic, death is your
domain / Lunatic, you're the man with rotten
brains.”
• Before the aforementioned quote from “In the
Mind of a Lunatic,” the way the band starts the
story of Jack the Ripper is buying a girl for
pleasure.
• “A man is searching for a girl to get him through
the night / And with a smile he gets a lady for he
knows his price is right / Off they go into an alley
it's just around the bend / But one's not coming
back for the Ripper's loose again.”

12. Sigh,“In the Mind of a Lunatic,”
cont.
• Sigh goes on to expound on the man’s intentions,
placing emphasis on the worthlessness of the victims.
• “Deep does cut the knife into another lady's life / For a man
is killing off the corner whores / And with a steady hand he
creeps around the land / This slashing fiend does bring a scene
of gore/ From top down to the bottom his victims feel the knife
/ For with precision and great care they have been cut / The
horror of their faces are now stuck in scenes of fright / From
the brutal acts committed on these sluts.”
• Fittingly, the mystery of Jack the Ripper is also
addressed.
• “The town is drenched in murder while the whores are drenched
in blood / And London has no clue, who is this beast? / In
time, the killings ended but the case was never solved / And
the curious they never went away / But no one was ever named
for the crimes of Jack the Ripper / It's a mystery that's
lasting till this very day.”

13. 6. Animal Collective, “Unsolved Mysteries”
Album: Strawberry Jam, 2007
• Unlike most of the bands on this list, Animal
Collective isn’t a death metal band but rather, an
experimental pop/rock collective.
• Much of “Unsolved Mysteries” has little to do with
Jack the Ripper explicitly, until the end.
• “Unsolved Mysteries” focuses on the innocence of
youth and how drastically humans can/do change as
they become adults.
• “‘Oh, look at me,’ that sweet boy’s plea / His mother
cried, ‘My child’s tied his laces’ / Why must we move on
from such happy lawns / Into nostalgia’s palm and feed on
the traces.”

14. Animal Collective,
“Unsolved Mysteries,”cont.
• A perfect example of the poorer qualities of human
beings as a whole occurs on the following lyric:
• “The blood in the dark will attract the sharks / Who are
not violent we all got hungry bellies.”
• So, where does Jack come into play? Essentially,
Animal Collective use the serial killer to show an
extreme example of what a human can become.
• While the identity of Jack the Ripper is an
unsolved mystery, so is the manifestation of a
serial killer from an innocent child.
• “And what a surprise to look in those eyes / To find
suddenly he is Jack, the Ripper / Too suddenly he was
Jack, the Ripper /… He stopped crying like a child / She
stopped crying like a child / Jack, the Ripper.”

15. 7. Lordi, “Blood Red Sandman”
Album: The Monsterican Dream, 2004
• On “Blood Red Sandman,” Finnish metal band Lordi
concocts its own hellish serial killer: Blood Red
Sandman.
• The band seems inspired by the infamous Jack the
Ripper. The best evidence of arrives on the first
verse of the song.
• “They call me the Leather Apron / They call me Smiling Jack /
They pray to the heavens above / That I would never ever come
back.”
• “Leather Apron” and “Smiling Jack” were nicknames for
Jack the Ripper.
• Beyond this, Lordi uses its own creativity to depict
the evil Blood Red Sandman.
• “Once again / There is pain / I bring flames / I bring cold /
I’m the Blood Red Sandman / Coming home / On this unholy night
/ I will make you my own…”

16. 8. Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages,
“Jack the Ripper”
Album: Til the Following Night, 2015
• “There's a man who walks the streets of London late at night / The
Ripper, Jack the Ripper / With a little black bag that's oh-so tight /
The Ripper, Jack the Ripper.”
• There are far fewer more entertaining songs about serial killers
than “Jack the Ripper” by Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages.
• Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages were a British rock band from
the 1960s.
• In 1963, the band first gave the world a glimpse into the evils
of Jack the Ripper, in the most tongue-n-cheek way possible.
• “He's got a big black cloak hangin' down his back / The Ripper, Jack the
Ripper /That's one big cat I just hate to fight / The Ripper, Jack the
Ripper / When he walks down the streets / Every girl he meets he says;
is you name Mary Kelly?”
• They accurately nail the fact that Jack the Ripper was never
caught.
• “Scotland Yard will never catch him, he's too clever / He's much too
clever.”

17. 9. Whitechapel,“The Somatic Defilement”
Album: The Somatic Defilement, 2007
• “Captivating with sadistic intentions to exalt the carrion
/ Holding onto faith like it would help me anyway / Up on
my feet. Vehemence takes over as I pave the way to
anatomical feast / Severing the ties I once endured to
understand why it is that I crave the dead…”
• Jack the Ripper is known for the Whitechapel
murders.
• Fittingly, Tennessee metal band Whitechapel tackle
Jack the Ripper throughout the course of their debut
album, The Somatic Defilement, released in 2007.
• Like we envision The Ripper to be himself,
Whitechapel deliver a heaping dose of hellishness
throughout the course of the title track.

18. Whitechapel,“The Somatic Defilement”
cont.
• “I find a sense in malpracticing the common ways / Wallowing in
claret. I long for such salvation / For when I’m through. I
shall wear you pride upon my lips / Songs of the dead will
eternally be chanted…”
• Like many metal bands, they get specific with the
blackness. Here, that blackness is the abuse of The
Ripper, and it’s gross to the nth degree.
• “An injection of sodium thiopental applied / Your eyes are
getting heavy now. I smell your fear / Delusions and paranoia
are setting in / Control in my hands. I now shall purge / With
the saw I maim. By the saw I live / Inhaling fumes of the putrid
festered funk / As I drain the throbbing cysts from the
gangrenous vagina / The Mordant reek is overtaking every
inhalation / The nausea is overwhelming. I stop to heave…”

19. 10. Macabre, “Jack the Ripper”
Album: Murder Metal, 2003
• For doom metal band Macabre, there is a song for every
serial killer. Literally – it’s their thing.
• “Jack the Ripper,” the penultimate cut from their 2003
album, Murder Metal, is a good one and a dark one, taken
from the perspective of Jack.
• Notably, Macabre starts things off with his inability to
be caught.
• “Dear boss, I keep on hearing / That the police have caught me /
But they won’t fix me just yet / I have laughed / When they
looked so clever / And talk about being / On the right track.”
• From there, Macabre continues on with the narrative –
“Leather apron,” whores, and of course, murder.
• “That joke about leather apron / Gave me real fits / I am down
on whores / And I shan’t quit ripping them / Till I do get
buckled / Grand work the last job was / I gave the lady no time
to squeal.”

20. 11.Gorerotted,“To Catch a Killer”
Album: Only Tools and Corpses, 2003
• British death metal band Gorerotted was something
else. To say the least, the song titles from
their 2003 album, Only Tools and Corpses, are
hellish.
• Some examples include “Zombie Graveyard Rap
Bonanza,” “Fuck Your Arse with Broken Glass”
(ouch!), and “Can’t Fit Her Limbs in the Fridge.”
• These song titles make “To Catch a Killer,” our
highlighted record, sound tame. IT’S NOT.
• Gorerotted paint quite the portrait of Jack the
Ripper, employing a dual-lead vocalist line up –
Ben McCrow and Jason Merle.

21. Gorerotted,“To Catch a Killer”
cont.
• First of all, “To Catch a Killer” doesn’t
solely focus on Jack the Ripper.
• There are sections dedicated to John Wayne
Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Fred West, and
John George Haigh.
• Focusing on Jack the Ripper, here are the
lyrics are as follows:
• “Do they who I am? I don't think they do / Then I'll
send them a liver to give them a clue
/ I'll send them a letter and write it in blood and
tell them about the things I've done.”

22. 12. Motörhead, “Jack the Ripper”
Album: March or Die, 1992
• Concluding this most dark slideshow is English hard rock/
heavy metal band Motörhead.
• Like their colleagues, they seem to have the narrative and
vibe of Jack the Ripper on lockdown.
• Lemmy and company are brilliant as they describe how victims
should act as Jack prepares to kill them.
• “Don't be acting crazy / Don't you cause a riot / Stand very
still, keep very quiet.”
• Motörhead also references the ability for the concealment of
Jack’s identity – a popular part of all Ripper tunes.
• “You'll never see the face / Of the man in the window / Your heart
begins to race /He's the one to spring you a surprise / The
ripper, master of disguise /…See into the mind, see into the brain
/ Try to find out the reasons / That Jacky's out again / Slipping
and sliding / Don't even try to hide / Just like your shadow /
Breathing at your side.”

23. Credits
• Photo Credits: Koch, BMG, Warner Bros., Nuclear Blast,
Cacophonous, Domino, The End, Rollercoaster, Metal
Blade, Decomposed, Sony
• Tags: Jack the Ripper, playlist, playlists, serial
killers, serial killer playlists, true crime, true
crime playlists, British serial killers, British metal,
metal, death metal, doom metal, heavy metal, Judas
Priest, Nick Cave, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds,
Morrissey, Benediction, Sigh, Japanese metal, Animal
Collective, experimental pop, experimental rock,
alternative, alternative rock, Lordi, Finland, Finnish
metal, Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages, Whitechapel,
Macabre, Gorerotted, Motörhead
• Original Article: 12 Songs About Jack the Ripper |
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