Oh! I actually know the truth about this one! *giggles merrily* The cool thing about this particular urban legend is that it has so many different incarnations. When you sit and really think about it, they're really hokey. But they're captivating, and they sound kind of possible, which is what keeps you telling them to your friends and family members. I [magical panda that I am] have typed out my favorite versions below, altering them with my own little touches of morbidness. I put a pathetic amount of work into this little post, so pleeeeeease read all of it. Hehehe.

For those of you who've never seen it, the album cover for the song in question has been inserted above. It features a woman kneeling down, with honey drippin' all over the place. [Keep it in your pants, Hannah. Hehehe.]

EXAMPLE VERSION 1: The scream heard is from the model who posed for the album cover. In the original photoshoot, she is kneeling on a sheet of what everyone assumed was ordinary plastic. They later find that it was plexiglass, and the scream heard is the result of the model's skin being ripped from her knees as they attempted to pry her free from the plexiglass, which the honey had bonded to her skin. As a bit of a morbid joke, the band hires the same model to reproduce the scream for the song Love Rollercoaster.

EXAMPLE VERSION 2: The song Love Rollercoaster was being recorded in the lead singer's apartment, due to budget issues and bad financial advice. During the recording, a woman ran in through the unlocked door to seek refuge from an abusive boyfriend. Running in close behind her, the angry boyfriend stabs her in the middle of the room, causing her to scream in pain. The band, short on production funds, is forced to continue singing and leave the scream in the track, unable to afford another recording session for the song.

EXAMPLE VERSION 3: Again, the scream is from the model on the album cover. The band is on hand for the photoshoot, making sure everything is going smoothly. They're using a tape recorder to dictate notes during a conversation with their manager, when suddenly they hear the model scream. Running to her side, they discover that someone has heated the honey to make it flow more freely for the photo, not realizing that it would scald the model. The model decides to sue the band for damages and wins. The band, entirely upset by this, chooses to mock the model by using the recording of her scream in their Love Rollercoaster track.

Ok... so those are three examples. I tampered with the first two to make them a tad more believable. And while I borrowed the heated honey bit, everything else about the third example is entirely from my own imagination. *smiles* Oh, I promised you the truth, right? Ok...

THE TRUTH...? The scream heard isn't exactly a scream at all. It's one of the members of the band being a bit creative. There's a trick in the music business to help you reach octaves higher than you're normally capable of. The trick is to perform the note whie inhaling, causing the pitch to rise rapidly. Band member Billy Beck did just that, and the result is the "scream" you hear on the album. The band let the rumors fly about the origin of the scream because, quite frankly, they'd be stupid to tell the truth. The rumors boosted record sales and they didn't want to mess with success. Only within the past decade did the band finally decide to tell the truth about where the scream came from. Pretty cool, eh?

-Justin the Mighty