I like a good slasher movie as much as the next guy -- my irrational love for the movie 976-EVIL is a matter of public record -- but one of the unfortunate consequences of increasingly graphic depictions of violence in the visual arts has been that it’s gotten harder to scare people. Where the word “murder” would have done the job once, now nothing short of the autopsy photographs will do. What is a songwriter who wants to frighten his listeners using the subtle effects of language and nuance to do? Why, misspell things, of course. Is there anything creepier in the world that a well-placed misspelled word? Stop and think: which of the following two notes would you be more frightened to find stuffed in your screen door --

or
?
Naturally it has got to be the latter. The first one could be a friend trying to pull one over on you, but the second is either an quasi-literate stalker or a kid in your neighborhood, and either way it can only mean trouble. Who knows what “Pull/Pulk” was supposed to have meant at some point in the distant past, before its meaning was forever mangled beyond recognition? “Pull/Push”? But how? It cannot be “push.” We will never know. Its original impetus was destroyed by its own desperate speed to get its point across. It has effectively erased its ability to convey meaning. It commits suicide right in front of your eyes, again and again, as many times as you read it. There is blood everywhere.