Love songs are pretty wonderful but can also be strange. Most of the time they are the perfect shorthand to convey our feelings to another person far more poetically than we can usually muster. However, it’s remarkable how creepy they can sound when framed even slightly out of context. What’s usually meant as a profession of love and devotion for another can become a dark manifesto of obsession with the slightest change in tone or intention. This fact has become frighteningly clear thanks to an artist creating horror novel book covers for songs about love and heartbreak.

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Brazilian artist Butcher Billy‘s Stephen King’s Stranger Love Songs was brought to our attention via a recent post on LaughingSquid and it’s got us questioning every love song we’ve ever heard. The covers present us with the more dubious sides of the love songs and really drives home the point for the ones about heartbreak. The style and detail in each cover looks so much like old horror novels that it takes a second or two to realize that these aren’t actually books from the ’70s and ’80s.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS63VH0jIXH/

This one for George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” is downright perfect and, when you think about it, the saxophone line in the tune feels right at home for a classic noir film. Heck, even the video opens up like a gritty detective movie.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSv9I5xDS25/

This cover is creepy enough but now we’ve started to think how terrifying it’d be if someone mashed up footage of Stephen King’s IT and Lionel Richie’s “Hello.” [Note to internet: please do not do this. We enjoy sleep too much]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSywCRBjSKF/

This one for “Every Breath You Take” perfectly sums up the already creepy song by Sting. Is that why all of these work? Are love and heartbreak songs all just sinister ballads to horrible deeds? Is every classic song that stands the test of time just plain evil in some way!?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS3vEFQjvqI/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BStjf8njvd6/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSq2PW3juWI/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS9FiAIj3ou/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS1TZFsjEo6/

Answer: absolutely.

Let’s discuss why we never noticed the darker side of love songs in the comments below!

Images: Butcher Billy