10 Essential Halloween Songs

One of the truly great horrors of Halloween for me is seeing the dreck that people add to their list of the top 10 Halloween songs. I don't know if these people are bound by their local jukebox or an innate inability to see beyond iTunes, but they inevitably toss a few tracks that have nothing to do with ghouls and ghosts onto their Halloween party playlists.

"Psycho Killer" is not a Halloween song. Neither is Rick James' "Superfreak," a choice that's all the stranger when you think that any soul/R&B fan should know about Parliament's "Dr. Funkenstein." And I'm pretty sure that Mike Oldfield didn't spend all that time building and composing for a new musical instrument to have his "Tubular Bells" turned into an October cliche, The Exorcist aside.

So here are some party songs that are actually about Halloween, horror, or ghoulish apparitions. I've left off the perennial favorites, "Ghostbusters" and "Monster Mash," because they're on your list already. At the end, you'll find a bonus MP3 of some spooky music to set the mood.

10. Madness, "One Step Beyond." If I see The Specials' "Ghost Town" on one more Halloween list, you'll know by the sound of my bloodcurdling scream. That's a song about youth violence and disillusionment, about as relevant to Halloween as "A Message to Rudy." They do spook it up a bit with the echo and the backing vocals, so it's passable, but on all counts, "One Step Beyond" is the better choice. It's a grooving, upbeat instrumental that does for ska what Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" did for rock. "Ghost Train" is another spooky Madness number worth a spot on longer playlists.

9. Warren Zevon, "Werewolves of London." An obvious choice, but expect your guests to howl if they don't hear it. Everyone knows the words, and it's slow enough to coax people onto the dance floor. If you want to defy convention, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" is another great Zevon tune that will impress the music snobs, if not the dancers.

8. The Charlie Daniels Band, "Devil Went Down to Georgia." Everybody knows this one too, and there's nothing like an Irish reel to get your guests moving. Thanks to Coyote Ugly, this one's a favorite with the ladies.

7. David Bowie, "Scary Monsters." Why this never shows up on Halloween lists is a mystery. Maybe because it's so hard to pin down what most Bowie songs are supposed to be about. A driving beat and some eerie sounds add to the scare appeal here. If you want to go off the beaten path with Bowie, "Please Mr. Gravedigger" is a wonderful spoken-word piece that sets a Halloween mood. "Up the Hill Backwards," Bowie's paean to teen suicide and societal apathy, fits a gothic mood for fans of the Ziggy Stardust years.

6. Mike Myers, "Halloween Theme (Terror Mix)." You can find this track pretty easily online, and you can preview it here. Take John Carpenter's signature horror score, set it to a techno beat, add a few quotes from Donald Pleasance, and you've got one danceable piece of scary music.

5. Blue Oyster Cult, "Don't Fear the Reaper." The most blatantly pro-suicide song to ever crack the Top 20 on the Billboard charts, this was B.O.C.'s biggest hit, peaking at #12 in 1976. If the screaming guitar solo doesn't stand your hairs on end, the lyrics, in which a young man offers his girl all the reasons why they should kill themselves, certainly will.

4. Michael Jackson, "Thriller." Come on, you know this is going to be on any Halloween playlist. It's a song about classic horror cinema with a great dance beat and all the stock sound effects you could want. Everybody loves doing that zombie dance. Just be sure to get the full-length version with all of Vincent Price's narration, or you're denying your guests the best part of the song.

3. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, "The Time Warp." This has been adopted by fans as one of the must-play songs of Halloween. It's not about ghosts, or science fiction, or really anything for that matter, but you can't deny the power of the Pelvic Thrust to get the room hopping. Lead into this with "Science Fiction Double Feature" to set the mood.

2. Zombina and the Skeletones, "Nobody Likes You When You're Dead." This Liverpudlian quintet blends a post-punk energy with horror lyrics that are the funniest thing this side of Jesus H. Christ and The Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse. If you're lucky enough to live near England, you can catch them live. Over here in the States, we'll have to settle for their hard-to-find studio albums and the offerings on the ZATS MySpace page. This song is my personal favorite and a great introduction to their sound. Try it. You'll look very hip.

1. Oingo Boingo, "Dead Man's Party." Anyone who doesn't include this in their list of the best Halloween songs loses their right to have a list of the best Halloween songs. Pure, creepy fun from Danny Elfman, wholly appropriate lyrics, and the finest horn sound this side of early '80s British ska, even if it's coming from a synth.

Halloween Tunes for You
I'd planned to post Claudio Simonetti's outstanding title track from Tenebre, which is a delicious goth-rock synth exploration set to a disco beat. The great wrong of this track being unavailable has been corrected, however, thanks to the DARIO ARGENTO ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK CD. Buy this and you'll get some Keith Emerson, Morricone, and Goblin thrown in for good measure.

So for those of you who love Halloween humor but can't take any more Monster Mash, here's John Zacherley's Dinner with Drac Part 1 and Dinner with Drac Part 2. Why two parts? Most of the lyrics are the same, but Dick Clark found some parts of "Dinner with Drac" too intense for the American Bandstand audience in 1958, so he asked Zacherley to switch it up for his live performance. Fans started clamoring for the alternate version, so Cameo Records released it as a b-side.

The rip's a bit rough, but that only adds to the Halloween charm, doesn't it?