Stay In Your Grave

Album: Ohio Players (2024)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Stay In Your Grave" is an eerie three-minute rock 'n' roll song featuring a turn from Alice Cooper. This collaboration brings the garage rock duo together with the iconic shock rocker, resulting in a haunting and energetic track.
  • With a storyline that could make Edgar Allan Poe lean in, "Stay in Your Grave" spins a yarn about a mysterious cabbie - the sort who appears in foggy alleys and seems a bit too comfortable with eerie destinations. As it turns out, he's none other than the Devil himself, and the lyrics, full of ominous turns, offer a wink at Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" with a touch of T.S. Eliot's existential musings.
  • Now, it just so happens that Alice Cooper has been a golf buddies with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys for years, thanks to Carney's neighbor, Cooper's longtime agent. So when Auerbach suggested that Cooper take a stab at the Devilish role, Carney casually brought it up on the green. Cooper showed up in the studio the very next day.

    Carney's bandmate Dan Auerbach recalled to Uncut magazine: "He came in full regalia too, he had all the makeup on... and nailed it instantly, he knew exactly what to do. It was perfect – perfectly gruesome!"
  • The song appears on the "Trophy Edition" of The Black Keys' Ohio Players album, an expanded release featuring four bonus tracks.
  • The Black Keys released "Stay In Your Grave" as a single on October 25, 2024, just in time for Halloween.
  • The music video, a spooky concoction by Corey Bost and Ali Gome, cuts between live Black Keys footage and classic horror film clips.

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