So, what’s your pleasure on October 31? Is it…
… Creepy, Spooky or Goth?
… How about humorous, or eerie?
Or maybe: Monsters… or extremely nasty humans?
No matter how you like them, everyone has some favorite songs to add to the playlist around Halloween.
We want to know what you think. Starting right now, and for the whole weekend:
Nominate your favorites in the comments below. A limit of three, please! 🙂
Then, mt and I will meticulously and accurately tabulate the results:
And starting on Monday, we’ll present the brackets, and look for your daily votes to determine the winner of:
“The Spooky Song Supreme!”
OK, here we go… And by the way: here are my nominations:
Werewolf – Five Man Electrical Band
Eye of the Zombie – John Fogerty
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) – David Bowie
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner – Warren Zevon
Let the author know that you liked their article with a “heart” upvote!
Thank You For Your Vote!
Sorry You have Already Voted!
I’ll avoid the obvious ones and go dark:
“Dig Up Her Bones” – Misfits
“Deathwestern” – Spiritworld
“Bodies in the Basement” – Demented Are Go
https://youtu.be/RcCmmtLl1Zo
I watched the video for “Deathwestern”. The cinema geek in me loves this.
Me too… but it’s not for everybody. 👿
The only reason “Monster Mash” doesn’t make my list is because it was WAY overplayed in my household growing up.
“Every Day is Halloween” – Ministry”Lullaby” – The Cure”Time Warp” – Rocky Horror Picture Show
https://youtu.be/KFPI9b9N6CQ
Dude!!! You chose 2 of my 3!!
I was gonna say Every Day is Halloween and Lullaby as well. [High five]
My third choice? After watching the newest episodes on Netflix this week, I gotta go with the theme from “Unsolved Mysteries”.
That music always takes me back to being a teenager and watching it on Friday nights when my parents might go out for the evening, and being totally freaked out because we had a giant bay window in the living room that was opposite the tv so my back would be to the window, but I was still obsessed with watching Unsolved Mysteries anyway……
(Hi btw everyone, sorry for being awol for so long here, hit a really bad funk a few weeks ago, but feeling much better now 🙂)
We missed you! And we are glad that you are back.
Welcome out of the funk. Now time to bring the funk!
https://youtu.be/rrBx6mAWYPU
Glad to have you back!
For Halloween itself I usually go fun and spooky, so here goes:
The Cramps: I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Alice Cooper: Feed My Frankenstein
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on You
The Misfits: I Turned Into a Martian
Human League: Darkness
Siouxsie & the Banshees: Halloween
Kip Taylor: She’s My Witch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwps6_QB3Is
Ditto the above suggestions for The Cramps, Rocky Horror, and “Monster Mash,” and I’ll add “The Munsters Theme Song” and “Halloween Night” by The Freeze.
I know you guys are probably tired of me mentioning my own stuff, but… “I Can’t Make You Anything (But Lonely)” by Pussycat Doghouse
You forgot the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQkTqJKKiEE
Ha! Spooky….
Oh goodness! Another one of my old bands. I forgot all about this song until my former bandmate reminded me today. It’s “The Boogie Man.” Watch out.
https://youtu.be/FivOiBUVSq0
Some more:
Oingo Boingo: No One Lives Forever
Alien Sex Fiend: Nightmare Zone
Shonen Knife: Devil House
The Tiger Lilies: Bully Boys
The Damned: These Are the Hands
Tom Waits: Reeperbahn
Cab Calloway: St. James Infirmary
Lydia Lunch: Spooky
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult: Devil Bunnies
Having never compiled a Halloween playlist I’ve had to wrack my brains but here we are….
Dead Man’s Bones – My Body’s A Zombie For You
Sweet – Hellraiser
Suzi Quatro – Devilgate Drive
I confess that I am surprised that you have never done a Halloween playlist. Maybe Halloween is not such a big deal over there? We have songs that are regularly heard through the month of October and no other time. Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s Monster Mash is a prime example, with Donovan’s Season of the Witch being another.
Here’s the playlist my daughter and I put together a couple of years ago to get you started.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07bBPlPTu0WpyAHPNrahnW
Funny you should mention whether Halloween is such a big deal over here. There may well be something in the pipeline that covers an event with a lot of history specific to Britain that happens a week after Halloween but now takes secondary importance in the social calendar to ghosts and ghouls. Coming soon to a website near you sometime around November 5th!
The fact that I don’t hear Halloween themed songs in shops or anywhere in the lead upto the day suggests we still have a way to go to match your enthusiasm for it.
Some great tracks on your playlist. The gothic horror and sense of impending doom of Nick Cave and Red Right Hand is perfect for the occasion.
I would like to nominate Chuck Berry’s My Ding A Ling.
I heard it a couple of weeks ago on an AT40 replay. I still shudder and find myself terrified to think that it was a number one record.
#Justice4MyDingALing
It got what it deserved… ☠️
If you mean its number one status, no, it didn’t. If you mean its rating of one and the general thrashing that it received on here, yes, it did.
The skull may signify my meaning 😉
I love it.
You can always count on Pauly and LTC to get it.
Well, they were a clue, but I wanted to make my position perfectly clear. You know, as math teachers do…and don’t.
Paul McCartney told Paddy McAloon that “The King of Rock and Roll” was his “My Ding A Ling” at a party.
A trio to “die” for.
Oingo Boingo “Dead Man’s Party”
Bloodrock “DOA”
Gounod “Funeral March of the Marionette”(Theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents)
When I was a little kid, the Alfred Hitchcock theme did seem pretty spooky. But the thing that really creeped me out was when they would come back from the commercial, and show the title of that week’s episode. In the background would be a very ominous, low orchestral note playing. That’s the one that really got to me.
Years later when I was a teenager, the DOA record was pretty frightening. We tried to act like we were tough, and didn’t want to admit it to the girls, but we didn’t like it very much either.
Like it or not, “Thriller” is a must, it maybe overplayed by now, but being created as a horror movie theme before there was even a mini film wasn’t usual back in the day
“Hell” by Squirrel Nut Zippers, it’s another suggestion.
“Rawhead and Bloodybones”- Siouxsie and the Banshees
“Candlelight Song”- Violent Femmes
“The Mercy Seat” – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Honorable mention: “John Wayne Gacy” – Sufjan Stevens
I didn’t want to trivialize death. I just wanted to say that Sufjan Stevens, with this song, captures horror better than the loudest “black metal”.
This is great! I was so hoping that your guys would come up with some off the wall choices, and you did not disappoint.
And I would like to add a huge thanks to MT for taking my idea and running with it in a way that I would never have been able to do. He’s the best!
I just put up a little bit of window dressing.
It’s all of you wonderful folks who continue w to come up with the greatest ideas, participate in the comments, and cheer each other on.
It’s you all who make this place the fun hang out that it is.
I wish Oogie Boogie’s song was better….
I’d like to nominate White Zombie’s “Dragula” just because. 🙃
If you want an 85 year old Halloween treat, you can listen the 5 Jones Boys sing “Mr. Ghost Goes to Town”. Fun, not too scary.
I totally vote for Napoleon XIV. Terrified me as a kid.
Third vote? It’s hard not to vote for the Monster Mash.
I had never heard “DOA”. Sheesh, dark.
I stick up for “Thriller”. Having gone through the virtual 80s on tnocs, I gathered that most people are sick of the song, but for me it has held up better than most of the other tunes on that album. That chorus is undeniable.
Has anyone mentioned “Ghostbusters”?
I was also terrified by Napoleon XIV as a kid (still find it a little unsettling to be honest). And I think that you are the first to add Ghostbusters.
I had thought of “Ghostbusters” but felt if fell into the “Thriller” field
of “yeah, that one”.
I would go with “We’re On Our Own” from the Ghostbuster franchise
as that refers to the refusal to believe there are any ghosts haunting
New York. And, boy, would that make quite an article!
My Three…
1) Boris Pickett- Monster Mash (saw some reluctance to nominate this but c’mon it’s a classic; I’m lockin’ it in!)
2) Radiohead: Climbing Up the Walls
3) Mark Snow: X-Files Theme
For me, “Monster Mash” is always implied.
My older sister once snarkily commented that everything I listen to basically sounds like “Monster Mash.” There may be a kernel of truth there…
Your sister wants to know what happened to the Transylvania Twist
In grade school, we would always badger Stevie Goldstein to sing the famous line in the song.
Nobody in the schoolyard could nail the “Vhatever” and “Tvist” the way he could.
(Yes. This is the kind of thing we would do at recess. Looking back, it’s endearingly pathetic.)
Here’s a 7-hour playlist for anyone interested.
I didn’t bother thinking about sequencing though; just shuffle and enjoy!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/77GIqvAofQHjqCPxaTx7A1?si=3fac3b675a51485b
Listening as I type. Thanks!
Taco’s version of “Puttin’ On the Ritz” is a brilliant add. It’s like undead karaoke night. Pretty much anything Siouxsie Sioux sings is suitable for Halloween. I was goth. But I didn’t get dressed up. I hung out with all the disenfranchised white kids in middle school.
I’ll add the Twin Peaks theme from Angelo Badalamenti.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXrjMaVoTy0