There are some kinds of music — particularly the harder, harsher speed metal or even some of the more artsy experimental composers — which set my teeth on edge and kickstart the flight-or-fight impulse in me. But I don’t know that I’d classify that response as fear. The stories about Stravinsky and the premiere of his The Rite of Spring, that’s a pretty incredible tale of the visceral power of music. The best exploration I know of on that subject is this excellent RadioLab episode.

But, from time to time, music has actually frightened me — and not because it was cacophonous or atonal/experimental. There was something genuinely frightening about the circumstances surrounding it and it’s stayed with me ever since. Here’s the top three…

When my brother was in high school, he’d listen to music late at night in his room. He had a battery-powered cassette player and the music would keep pace with the amount of charge left in the batteries. The longer they’d gone, the slower the music would become — producing some genuinely creepy effects. I can remember the batteries going dead one night while he was listening to “Radio Clash” and the music just started grinding down, slower and slower> I was asleep in my room and I could hear, faintly, “Thiis . . . isss . . . the Raaaadiooo . . . Classsshhhh…” drifting across the hallways, just barely audible.

And then he rewound the tape and listened to it again. Joe Strummer’s laugh at the beginning was chilling and I drifted off into half-waking dreams of a demon band, moping their way through the slow-motion tune. Creepy.

And then there was the night, years later, when I was up late writing. I’d recently discovered the music of Glenn Gould and it was just about the only thing I would listen to. As I said, it was late and I was alone in the apartment, working on a particularly difficult segment for a play that I’d been commissioned to write. It was quiet and I had Glenn Gould on, very low and repeating the album over and over again.

A few hours into writing, I realized that I could hear a voice, low and measured, just on the edge of consciousness. I got up and checked around the apartment — nothing. A while later, the voice edged its way back into my consciousness again. Once again, I got up and checked around, looked outside — nothing.

I stood there, listening.

There. The voice rose and fell again, very low.

I switched off the music to hear better. Nothing.

Turning the music back on, the voice began again and I realized that the voice was on the music, on the recording. I did not know it at the time, but Gould had a tendency to sing or hum along with himself as he played. And, because he had passed away years before, I was more or less listening to the voice of a ghost.

But the creepiest music I have ever heard is the times, late at night, when I would be shocked out of a deep sleep by the sound of the cat walking across the open piano. That strange, discordant jumble of notes was so startling, so strange in an otherwise quiet house.

Worst of all was the time when, hearing the piano, I sat up to go down and close the lid on the keys . . . only to find that the cat was sleeping at the foot of the bed. It was a difficult task to work up the nerve to go downstairs anyway and check on the otherwise quiet house. I found nothing, of course — leaving me with no other explanation for what (or who) might have been playing in the night.

I will say, however, that the theme from the Haunted Mansion — aka Grim Grinning Ghosts — is a genuinely spooky little tune. And I love it. But this is coming from a guy who has Tubular Bells as his ringtone. So.

The shortest is just a second or so, long enough for Eric Cartman to say “Democrats piss me off.”

The longest track is the first section of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. It’s over seven hours long.

Guiltiest Pleasure: Britney Spears’ (I Got That) Boom Boom.

Oddest Track: I’ve got a recording of William S. Burroughs chanting his way through REM’s “Star Me Kitten” — which is certainly odd, deeply disturbing, and remarkably still available if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

Most Mysterious: I have no idea where or how I got “Face Down” by something called Katie Todd Band, causing me to wonder if it’s possible that iTunes is somehow spamming me with unsolicited downloads on the off chance that I might like something enough to buy the album? (Sorry Katie, not this time.)

Favorite Track(s): “Walker” Soundtrack by Joe Strummer. I bought the cassette of this back in high school and listened to it so much that it finally broke. I repaired it with scotch tape and it was a sad day when the tape player in my car ate it once and for all. It went out of print fairly quickly (apparently there isn’t much demand for mariachi music soundtracks composed by former punk legends for unsuccessful independent movies about obscure points in Mexican history directed by lunatics). From time to time, I’d check eBay where CD’s were going for ninety bucks or more. I once debated buying an LP version for forty but decided against it, much to my regret. Once in a while, I’d find the odd track through Limewire — someone who had ripped the LP into MP3, so you could hear the hiss and pop of the turntable and feel like you were really there. A few months ago it suddenly appeared on the iTunes Music Store and there was much rejoicing and clicking of the impulse-buy-gotta-have-it-now-dammit mouse button. And now I’m playing the hell out of it. Just like when I was young.

Although . . . according to the little iTunes playcount thingy, the track I listen to the most is “Comptine D’un Autre Été: L’après Midi” from Yann Tiersen’s soundtrack for Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain — probably because it’s one of the first tracks on a soundtrack I created for the novel I’m writing. I usually end up listening to it at least once a day.

On the soundtrack, it’s called “Family Portrait / Driving to School” and it’s perfect for cold winter mornings, which are finally here.

But this was a bit of a surprise. I’d heard of it and I’d made some assumptions . . . but, well, this was a side of Alan I hadn’t really counted on.