Macabre songs about murder, specters, and other morbidities are par for the course for country music, but Leon Payne’s bone-chilling country song from the mid-1970s takes this tradition to a whole new level. The song, which Jack Kittel recorded in 1974, features the narrator speaking to his mother about all of the atrocities he had committed in recent memory. First, he talks about killing his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend and burying their bodies “under Jenkin’s sycamore.”
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Next, he squeezes a puppy to death, strangles the puppy’s owner, and kills a little girl with a wrench. At the end of each harrowing story, the refrain repeats, “You think I’m psycho, don’t you, Mama?” From start to finish, the song is unsettling and grim.
Unsurprisingly, then, the song also has plenty of associated rumors that describe what the song was about and requests the songwriter allegedly had. A particularly common rumor about “Psycho” claims that the “Lost Highway” writer requested nobody record the song until after he died because of how disturbing its content was.
Payne’s daughter, Myrtie Le Payne, refuted this story in an interview with Nashville Scene. “I don’t know of any songwriter who writes a song and then says, ‘Don’t record this.’ When Daddy wrote a song, he had someone in mind to record it. He would call them and actually sing the song over the phone. He was quite the song pitcher.”
So, What Was Leon Payne’s Bone-Chilling Country Song Actually About?
When it comes to old Appalachian murder ballads, they have the benefit of being so old that their original songwriter is often unknown. Musicians who revive these songs about murder and tragedy are simply carrying on a folk tradition, not necessarily singing about a specific crime or person. But Leon Payne wasn’t reviving “Psycho” from the annals of folk music history. He wrote it himself, leading to rampant speculation over what (or whom) he was describing.
Some stories claimed Charles Whitman, the mass murderer who killed his mother and wife before shooting 14 people at the University of Texas from the top of a belltower. Other rumors suggested the song was about the horror films Psycho or Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte. “The movie story came from my mother,” Myrtie Le Payne, daughter of songwriter Leon Payne, told Nashville Scene. “She was known to exaggerate at times,” she added.
Determined to find the actual origin story, Myrtie connected with Jackie White, who played steel guitar with her father. According to White, the song actually came about after he and Leon were discussing Richard Speck. In July 1966, Speck killed eight students and was sentenced to death. Leon and White began talking about other murderers, like Charles Whitman, Ed Gein, Mary Bell, and Albert Fish.
Morbidly inspired by his discussion with White, Leon wrote what would become “Psycho”. He even included White’s last name in the first verse, naming the slain new boyfriend Jackie White, after his steel guitar player. The opening line, “Can Mary fry some fish, Mama?”, was a combination of Bell and Fish’s last names.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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