Gloomy Tunes—John Cale, “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend”

Hearing this  on one of the new episodes of “The X-Files”  last week brought a smile to my face, which I doubt was the music supervisor’s intent when he chose a song titled “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend” (you could also catch a glimpse of the album’s high-contrast black and white cover).  If a trifle too on-the-nose, the song’s coda—over a caterwauling viola and a dying quail of a guitar, Cale’s voice rises to a scream, sounding more and more unhinged—the song, the title track to his fourth solo album, brought a nice tension to the scene where Jackie Earle Haley’s character scurried around his trailer, preparing to capture Mulder.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.