Sometimes you need a little music to set the mood. Maybe you're going to a Halloween party, maybe you're just eating little Snickers bars waiting for the doorbell to ring, but Bobby "Boris" Pickett just doesn't move you the way you need to be moved. Allow me to suggest a few good songs with supernatural content - witches, ghosts, or just minor chords and evil harmonies. This is largely stuff from the "Classic Rock" era, and not excessively obscure, I trust.
"Tam Lin" - Fairport Convention - Sandy Denny narrates a tale of midnight riders and fairy queens on Halloween while Richard Thompson, Dave Swarbrick and Dave Mattacks romp.
"Alison Gross" - Steeleye Span - Mid-70's Span is a wealth of songs about witches, demons, bloodletting and murder most vile. A fun little tune about the ugliest witch in the north country.
"Werewolves of London" - Warren Zevon - Okay, an obvious choice. His hair was perfect.
"I Put A Spell On You" - Screamin' Jay Hawkins - The original is the best, but CCR and Arthur Brown did fine versions, too.
"Walking On The Water" - Creedence Clearwater Revival - A nice level of spookiness here, without resorting to Charlie Daniels style ghost story telling.
"Flying Dutchman" - McKendree Spring - Electric violin and ghost stories just go together.
"The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)" - Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac or Judas Priest - But Arthur Brown sings a top notch version on the Rattlesnake Guitar tribute album, too.
"Black Magic Woman" - Santana - Perhaps another obvious choice. Peter Green was one haunted dude...
"Tubular Bells" - Mike Oldfield - I'm not sure how spooky this really is aside from the "Exorcist" connection, but it always sounds good to me. You can probably find 10 or 15 minutes that sound adequately ominous for a CD-R project.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Tom Johnson
"The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)" - Don't forget the Melvin's apocalyptic take, from 1999's The Maggot.
"Threnody For Souls in Torment" - Robert Fripp String Quintet is actually only Fripp and Gunn. Not to nitpick, just to inform. And yes, this is indeed one of the scariest things I've ever heard.
2 - JR
I prefer Fleetwood Mac's version of "Black Magic Woman"; it's sounds more voodoo to me. But nobody ever agrees with me on that. Santana has pretty much cornered the market on that song.
"Black Sabbath", the original is great. There's also this bizarre cover by Type O Negative on the Black Sabbath tribute album, "Nativity In Black". They took a lot of liberties with the song, but it turned out pretty cool.
Blue Oyster Cult has a few songs about vampires, most notably "I Love the Night" and "Nosferatu" from the "Spectres" album. I guess "Godzilla" is not scary enough to qualify as a Halloween song.
If you really want to scare the kids, sit 'em down with Pink Floyd's "Careful With That Axe, Eugene".
And don't forget "Sympathy For the Devil".
3 - Eric Olsen
Great list Dave and very fine additions JR - "Flying Dutchman"! I haven't heard that in ages. "Black Magic Woman" is one of the very few where I like different versions exactly equally: the voodoo element is there with the Mac, but Santana's is elegant and powerful at the same time.
For ghost songs you can't beat "LongBlack Veil" and The Band's in my fave.
I'm going to have to bust out my Lucifer's Friend album - the German proto-metal band had a pretty prolific career, but their first album is one of the lost wonders of the 20th century: heavy, spooky, melodic, atmospheric, freaking amazing. The title track seduces and terrifies simultaneously. I only have it on vinyl but I see Amazon has it in a reissue: a sublime secretion of early LZ, Black Sabbath, UFO, and Pink Fairies (damn, another one to talk about).
4 - Eric Olsen
It is a crime against humanity that there is no McKendreee Spring available from Amazon
5 - TDavid
How about: The Zombies with Time of the Season?
6 - Taloran
I love the Fleetwood Mac version of Black Magic Woman. I play it for people, tell them it's the Mac, and they stare at me like I've grown a third head.
Santana's is great too, but I like FMac's because it's less well known.
7 - David
Richard Hell also did "Walking on the Water," although I don't know how scary it is.
8 - David
The NY Dolls' "Frankenstein" is most definitely scary, though.
9 - Dan
It's good to see CCR make your list. They do good spooky. I hope I never have to hear tubular bells the rest of my life though.
10 - Hazy Dave
Thanks for all the comments and information, guys. (And the Amazon links, Eric!) eBay is a decent source for McKendree Spring CD's - German imports all. The compilation God Bless The Conspiracy is extremely good, not coincidentally including 6 of the 8 tracks from McKendree Spring 3. (Unfortunately, "Flying Dutchman" is one of the two songs omitted.)
Also, I've been reminded that Al Kooper did an extended version of "Season Of The Witch" with Steve Stills on Super Session. And some syndicated radio show played John Fogerty's "Eye Of The Zombie" this weekend. Good tune, and it reminded me of Roky Erickson's excellent "I Think Of Demons" and "I Walked With A Zombie", the latter also available in a REM cover version Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye...
11 - ClubhouseCancer
I love "the Monster Mash." But what about Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein," and Patti Smith's "Ghost Dance"? A friend had a great mix of standards and old tunes that all have such references in the titles, although few of them actually had anything scary in the content. Some of them are, as I remember:
I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
I'm Scared (by Sarah Vaughn)
Afraid of Love (by Cab Calloway)
This Masquerade
Witchcraft
Screamin and Cryin
I don't recall the others, but I will try...
12 - Jim Carruthers
There is a song which scared the crap out of me -- "The Kids" from Lou Reed's "Berlin" album. I was listening to a tape while dozing on the couch. I was half asleep when "The Kids" came on, and woke up to a child yelling Mommy, mommy.
Also, any list should have The Cure on it. Seventeen Seconds perhaps.
Plus there was a band from Ottawa (can't remember their name) who did a parody called "Truman Capote's Dead" ("he wrote In Cold Blood / and Breakfast at Tiffanies").
13 - Tom Johnson
Not Halloween-related, but scared-by-music related:
A Vinnie Vincent Invasion album (don't remember which, too lazy to look it up) scared the living daylights out of me when I was a teenager. Not because it was so cheesy; no, because I would often listen to music as I went to sleep and had chosen to listen to this as I went to sleep. Little did I realize (having always stopped the tape at the last song but not having done so as I was falling asleep) that after the last song and some silence, Vinnie's voice, low and creepy, suddenly growls, "Hey, tell all of your friends about us!" That's not something you want to hear as you drift off to sleep, let me tell you.
14 - Jim Carruthers
The official athem for halloween is of course, "Back In Black" by AC/DC.
If you disagree, the song itself will kick your ass.
15 - Tim Hall
If you're going to include "Nosferatu" by BOC, you have to include "Screams" of their debut as well. Something seriously creepy about that one. And for something of theirs that's much more recent, try "Harvest Moon".
16 - Chris Puzak
I'm surprised no one has mentioned "Halloween" or "Halloween II" from The MIsfits. Those were the first songs that popped into my head when I read the topic of the post.
17 - san
Oh please, people: Country Death Song by The Violent Femmes. They just threatened to add a week to my hospital stay, jumping up and down screaming as I was that nobody had listed that song before me. And I think they were serious.
18 - Mark
Nobody's mentioned yet "The Witch Queen of New Orleans" by Redbone.
19 - Hedgehog
The Torture Never Stops", Frankz Zappa and the Mothers of Invention . . . 9 plus minutes!!!!!
20 - dork02
"We Only Come Out At Night" by Smashing Pumpkins - awesome halloween song used in many halloween plays and such...