“The Killing Moon” by Echo and the Bunnymen

"The Killing Moon" was the lead single from Ocean Rain, Echo and the Bunnymen's fourth album, released by Korova in 1984, and it's the band at their most gorgeously doomy. All four members, Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant, Les Pattinson and Pete de Freitas, share the credit, David Lord produced and recorded it, Gil Norton mixed it with the band, and Adam Peters wrote the arrangement.

It unfolds slowly and grandly, strings lending the melody grace and weight, and McCulloch crooning like a romantic poet staring down fate beneath a big, cold moon. It's lush without being soft, and there's something ominous humming underneath all that elegance.

It reached number 9 in the UK, one of their highest-charting hits, and is often called the best thing they ever did; McCulloch himself has claimed no other band has a song anywhere close to it. It was used on the soundtrack of the 2001 film Donnie Darko, and it also appears in the 1998 film Gia with Angelina Jolie.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.