NPR had a cute little article about Halloween music this morning, and included some samples of “classic” Halloween-themed music—or at least music that refers to or is centered around the themes of Halloween, if that’s a useful distinction. I thought I would take up the mantle and offer a couple of my favorite examples of Halloween-themed music from my own library.

The first is the song “Death Path” (link goes to an MP3) by the 90’s Agro-Industrial band Mussolini Headkick. (“Agro” as in “Aggravated”, not “Agricultural”; they’re not farmers….as far as I know.) This song is some of the ultimate haunted house music, in my opinion. Less an orchestral composition than a soundscape (and pretty much completely sample-derived), it is almost unbearably creepy to me. Try playing it on a good set of surround speakers in a pitch-black room, if you want the full effect.

Next is “Halloween” by iconic Punk band The Dead Kennedys (another MP3). This is more in the “about Halloween” idiom, and is just a great example of what made DK so special amongst the screaming troglodytes of the Punk scene. The song is about wearing a mask every day of your life, and only taking it off one day a year to show your real self:

You go to work today,
You’ll go to work tomorrow,
Shitfaced tonight,
You’ll brag about it for months,
‘Remember what I did, remember what I was, back on Halloween?’

But what’s in between?
Where are your ideas?
You sit around and dream
For next Halloween.

Why not every day, are you so afraid, ‘What will people say?’
Why not every day, are you so afraid, ‘What will people say?’
After Halloween.

One of my very favorite memories revolves around this song. Margaret and I were in the local Fred Meyer looking for Halloween candy one year. Someone had decided to set up a boom box on a high shelf over the Halloween decorations, and had obviously told one of the low-ranking employees to find a Halloweeny-type song and record it onto a looped cassette. The anonymous stock-monkey had chosen The Dead Kennedys’ “Halloween”.

I have almost never been happier than I was standing in the aisle of a Fred Meyer listening to lead singer Jello Biafra repeatedly exhort the dead-eyed shoppers to “take your social regulations and shove ’em up your ass!”