A watchmaker spends six weeks secretly building a bomb to kill his wife — but on the day he sets it to blow, two burglars tie him up in the very basement where the clock is ticking.

ABOUT THE SONG
"Three O'Clock" is an original Static Wax composition written in the style of a 1940s/50s pop crooner ballad — smooth, intimate, and deceptively dark. The song follows watchmaker Stapp through his meticulous six-week murder plot, his helpless terror as the clock ticks toward three, and the devastating irony waiting for him on the other side of consciousness. The vintage crooner style was chosen to mirror the era in which the source story was both written and broadcast, placing the listener inside the same cultural moment as the original audience.

ABOUT THE SOURCE EPISODE
Sleep No More — "Three O'Clock" — broadcast December 12, 1956 on NBC Radio Network. A watchmaker named Stapp has spent six weeks secretly constructing a homemade bomb in his basement, convinced his wife is having an affair. Methodically smuggling in small amounts of explosive material and copper wire from his shop, he assembles the device inside a repurposed soapbox, wires it to an alarm clock set to detonate at 3:00 p.m., and plans to be safely at work when the blast obliterates his house — and his wife — inside it.On the day he completes the final connection, two burglars break in, catch him in the hallway, beat him unconscious, and tie him up with rope in the very basement where the bomb is ticking. Gagged and helpless, Stapp watches the minutes drain away, unable to warn anyone of the device just feet from him. A child briefly spots him through the basement transom window, but the mother dismisses it as impolite curiosity and pulls the child away.As the clock strikes three, Stapp loses consciousness — not to an explosion, but to sheer terror. He wakes hours later to his wife and a police officer standing over him. His wife casually mentions that she emptied the box that morning, using its contents as fertilizer in her backyard garden.The bomb was never a bomb at all. His meticulous instrument of murder had been quietly disarmed by the woman he intended to kill — without her ever knowing it existed.

ABOUT SLEEP NO MORE
Sleep No More was an NBC Radio Network anthology series hosted and narrated by Nelson Olmsted, featuring adaptations of suspense, horror, and mystery stories drawn from classic and contemporary fiction. Each episode opened with Olmsted's signature invitation to turn down the lights and settle into the darkness — a ritual that made the show one of radio's most atmospheric and beloved horror anthologies. Introduced by announcer Ben Grauer, the series brought some of the genre's finest short fiction to life through Olmsted's masterful narration. "Three O'Clock" was based on the short story by William Irish — the pen name of celebrated noir and suspense author Cornell Woolrich — and broadcast on December 12, 1956.

ABOUT STATIC WAX
Static Wax is an original music project from Darren Marlar, the creator and host of Weird Darkness. Each Static Wax song takes a story told on a vintage radio broadcast and reimagines it as an era-appropriate original composition — the way it might have sounded if it had been written for the jukebox instead of the airwaves. The songs are written and produced to authentically reflect the musical styles of the golden age of radio, from crooner ballads and big band swing to early rock and roll and beyond. Static Wax is part of the Weird Darkness RetroRadio universe, where classic old time radio episodes are presented alongside original music inspired by their stories.

STATIC WAX: "Three O'Clock"