Halloween: The Deeper Cuts
Spooky tunes throughout rock and roll history
Much has been written on the role of Christmas music in American pop, but I’d like to make a substantial argument for the Halloween record, and, by extension, the gothic and fantastic impulses in American music since the birth of rock and roll. The novelty song took on new weight when rock and roll crossed over—strangeness a core aesthetic. The list of 50s rock and roll and doo wop Halloween songs is a long one, and many of them make “Monster Mash” sound pretty weak, even as a joke. As rock and roll grew up, the scares intensified—through the psychedelic era, heavy metal, punk and hip-hop. Hardly some curious subgenre, the Halloween record is the dark B-side to pop’s sunny A-side. Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jeckyll, it’s essential to pop music’s whole.
After all, the best music depends on darkness. In our most visceral art, there’s something primeval—a cultural bonding against all of our fears. Rock and rap talk about the skeletons scratching at the closet, they rail against the body-snatchers that threaten everything that makes life worth living. When they can, they befriend the ghosts and monsters, and when they can’t make peace, they go down fighting. Either way, the darkness brings us together.
The Aliens Have Landed
In the beginning, a 1956 novelty hit “The Flying Saucer Song,” parodied Orson Welles’ 1940 Halloween broadcast of The War of the Worlds. When the invading spacecraft opens its pod doors, an intrepid reporter rushes for the alien’s first words: “A wop baba loo bop a wop bam boom!”
Listeners no doubt laughed when they heard Little Richard’s familiar voice. That single went straight to #3 and stayed on the charts for three months. While novelty records had always made up a significant share of the music industry, the moment signals something new happening. Rock and roll was a novelty in and of itself—so strange it was seemingly from outer space.
Down at the Crossroads
Of course, rock and roll wasn’t from space. It came out of the complex soil of the Mississippi Delta and obscure crannies of the Appalachian Mountains. Taking Pentecostal excitement and applying it to girls and cars, rock and roll was labeled “devil music” by the pious, and the biggest pop singer of the era, Frank Sinatra, said the music was dominated by “the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear.”
Admittedly, the mythic characters that prefigured the form tended to be more than a little familiar with the devil. Blues singer Robert Johnson was supposed to have sold his soul to the devil at the intersection of Highways 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And, before Johnson, the great jazz/country blues singer Jimmie Rodgers sang “I’m going to shoot poor Thelma, just to see her jump and fall.”
The darkness of the blues and country that gave birth to rock and roll make it a little ironic that (outside of extremist evangelical circles) people don’t talk more about the gothic in pop music. Rock and roll has always embraced our darker thoughts and fed Saturday night fantasies. And fans have always loved it for accepting that part of us kept hidden on Sunday morning (or Monday at work).
Music for the Living Dead
“The Flying Saucer Song” went to #3 on the Billboard charts, so Goodman and Buchanan put out “Flying Saucer the 2nd” in 1957. That was the year Universal Studios sold its “Shock Theater” package of classic horror movies for syndication, and a whole generation of kids grew up on both Frankenstein and Elvis. That was also the year Memphis rocker Billy Lee Riley had a regional hit with “Flying Saucer Rock and Roll.” When Sheb Wooley’s rockabilly hit “Purple People Eater” went to #1 in June of ‘58, a long list of science fiction and gothic themed singles followed. In 1959, Bobby Darin went #1 with the slasher song, “Mack the Knife,” and in 1962, Bobby “Boris” Pickett & the Crypt Kickers went #1 with “Monster Mash.”
The 60s brought a slew of creepy doo wop and garage rock singles and bands with names like ? & the Mysterians, the Troggs and the Zombies. Jimi Hendrix alternately played a space alien, a voodoo sorcerer and a merman from the future. The Rolling Stones sang of sympathy for the devil, and a young British musician named “Ozzy” Osbourne saw a marquee with the name of a Boris Karloff movie, Black Sabbath, and gave it to his band, inventing the most gothic of rock genres, heavy metal. The Godfather of Funk James Brown would inspire Sly Stone to capture the darkness of the late 60s with There’s a Riot Goin’ On, and former Motown songwriter George Clinton would crib notes from all of the above. By the 70s, his band would be cloning Dr. Funkenstein and cruising outer space in its very own Mothership.
All of these music developments suggest the nightmares of Halloween may lie closer to the heart of rock and rap than the dreams of Christmas. From Alice Cooper to Blue Oyster Cult or from the Ramones to Motorhead, from the Cramps to Rob Zombie to Marilyn Manson, and from the Geto Boys to Gravediggaz to the Insane Clown Posse, the gothic history of popular music has created its own subgenres. Meanwhile, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Ray Parker’s “Ghostbusters,” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” are cornerstones of pop.
Monster Mix
To make the case, I’ve compiled a Halloween mixtape. I’ve avoided familiar favorites like Gene Simmons’ “Haunted House” and Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” songs I like but don’t find particularly scary. As much as anything, I think Halloween is about a cozying up to death and the unknown, and those were the qualities I searched for in the words and music of these records. Feel free to argue with my list. Even better, make your own (using Responses below).
Bo Diddley “Bo Meets the Monster”
(1958)
A screeching door (like the one on the old radio series Inner Sanctum Mystery) opens to find Bo Diddley playing something other than his trademark beat. Instead, the drummer’s pounding a hard knock on the door, and Diddley’s walking guitar jitters in response. He’s come face to face with the Purple People Eater, and it’s taken his mother and his girl away. The singer punctuates each encounter with a forlorn wail and a blubbering sound that’s more than a little creepy.
Janelle Monae
“Come Alive (War of the Roses)”
(2010)
The story of a psycho who learns how to dance in other people’s heads. With Monae’s staggered pants and exclamations punctuating the verses and bigger-than-life screams and shouts, she sounds more than a little like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Certainly the theme of mind control (and release) is a nod to Hawkins’ great “I Put a Spell On You.” The difference is, instead of a taunt, this spell is liberating, a call to jerk and jump and twist and shout.
Loretta Lynn “This Haunted House”
(1964)
Like so many ghost stories, this one is firmly rooted in real grief. Loretta Lynn wrote it for her late friend Patsy Cline. But she fictionalizes it just a touch by implying the song is being sung by a widow. In fact, everything about this record is understated. The acoustic guitar’s lingering picks and strums, the distant moan of the backing vocals, and the lilting steel guitar only hint at the gothic turn on a classic country ballad. It’s the normalcy that makes the face floating above her and the footsteps in the night so haunting.
X “Come Back to Me”
(1982)
Seemingly a conscious child of “This Haunted House,” this ghost story by LA’s premier punk band also revolves around personal grief, the death of lead singer Exene Cervenka’s sister. One of the band’s prettiest songs, it’s hauntedness is conveyed by John Doe’s slow dance guitar, lonesome sax and relentless images of grief—watching Daddy lose control at the funeral home before she goes hiding in the ladies room; building a shrine “with flowers and Florida souvenirs” before hearing her sister walking through the house.
The Revels “Midnight Stroll”
(1959)
Doo wop seems to dominate the Halloween song genre. Maybe it’s the streetcorner storytelling nature of the form. A clock chimes ominously as this Philadelphia quartet begins to tell you what happened when one of them got off work later than usual on a certain chilly evening night. The fact that the song has no real lead singer, no one takes a front vocal, foreshadows the bizarre turn of events. The narrator of the song sees a man walking in a top hat by the cemetery, and he realizes the man is dead. “You may not believe it, but it has to be told,” he says, and then maniacal laughter and pulsing, rolling drums take over the bridge. When he picks up the story again, he’s been walking for “miles and miles” and he’s now doing “the dead man’s stroll.”
The Dream Syndicate “Halloween”
(1982)
Though this is another record from an underground LA band in 1982, this one is very different. The Dream Syndicate draws on equal parts Velvet Underground, the Stooges and, very likely, Joy Division to create something so spare its spooky—just some finger scratching guitar against looming bass and a swelling thunderstorm of guitar. The singer taunts “someone you might like to meet” may be waiting out in the darkness, but he repeats, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The Nu-Trends “Spooksville”
(1963)
Another creepy night journey by a Philly doo wop group, this song tells about stumbling upon a party in some netherworld with the address “Spooksville, Unknown.” People wander there, undead and headless, and when he learns one of these character’s stories, he finds out the man plans to eat him. More upbeat and playful than “Midnight Stroll,” the sharp, insistent bang of the piano serves as a warning long before the man’s cackling witch wives drown the band out.
The Specials “Ghost Town”
(1981)
This #1 hit in the U.K. doesn’t even try to be particularly metaphorical. It’s about deindustrialization and urban neglect, and the lyrics state things literally—“bands can’t play no more.” But the music is gothic. The horns slide into minor keys, burlesquing their most upbeat notions, and the backing singers taunt. The singer tells the tale in hushed tones, sounding spooky and natural at the same time, driving home the reality of the monsters to blame.
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
“Feast of the Mau Mau”
(1963)
No one pushed the horror single harder than Screamin’ Jay, and nowhere does he do it more audaciously than here. Built around percussive bass, horns, and plucked violin with an occasional snake of oboe and a few flames of organ, this is a record perpetually starting; it shouldn’t work, but it does. Most horror mythology is rooted in multicultural ignorance and curiosity, so the fact that Screamin’ Jay casts Kenyan radicals as cannibalistic monsters is either terribly wrong headed, or brilliant or both. It is scary enough. He commands you to “pull the skin off your friend with a razor blade,” before calling the whole thing “mad fun.”
Public Image, Ltd. “Poptones”
(1979)
Another disturbing piece of minimalism from the Thatcher era, this record is a quicksand of Jah Wobble bass, random drum beats, Steve Levine’s weird aluminum guitars and John Lydon’s nasal yowl of a voice. The story is cryptic—a man naked in a forest, disoriented, pop music on a Japanese car radio. He’s either hiding, dying, or dead… maybe all three. It’s an 8 minute David Lynch movie, without the warm fuzzies.
The Hollywood Flames
“Frankenstein’s Den”
(1958)
Almost 20 years before the Eagles sang about that hotel where “you can check out any time you like but you never leave,” another L.A. group sang about a place four stories beneath the ground where “you won’t come out like you went in.” Its random screams, rattling bone percussion and fish tale narrative style are all played for laughs, but it doesn’t feel funny so much as knowing.
Bone Thugs N Harmony “Hell Sent”
(1993)
These Cleveland rappers go way deeper than four stories—straight to hell, pick a fight with the devil, take over the joint and come back to the surface. About as gothic as it gets, the record starts with child-like voices singing a nursery rhyme about Bone “coming for you.” And the musical accompaniment is simply a strolling bass and gangsta keys. For a chorus, those kid voices return to taunt “murda, murda, murda.”
Lefty Frizzel “Long Black Veil”
(1959)
A walking guitar, some echo on the vocal and a hint of steel guitar are all that’s needed to convey the chills this murder ballad has to offer. Told from the point of view of a dead man, it really comes down to the dark ring of truth in Frizzel’s vocal. That and some gorgeous images—“she visits my grave when the night winds wail.”
Cold Specks “A Broken Memory”
(2014)
A gothic organ pulses in the background, but the real turmoil comes from Ambrose Akinmusire’s trumpet, which searches, scrambles, falters and cries out, sounding like Don Cherry’s work with Lou Reed on another dark record, The Bells. Of course the threat in singer Al Spx voice is absolutely essential, assuring listeners “all is calm/nothing is right.”
King Flash and the Calypso Carnival “Zombie Jamboree”
(1956)
The island of Trinidad becomes the island of Manhattan in this 1956 remake of a very hard-to-find single by one Lord Intruder. This is pure fun, a dance “back to back and belly to belly.” The only thing is that the dancers are dead and partying in the cemetery… oh, and the singer can’t seem to lose one of the women who promises him “you will see, after you kiss this dead zombie.”
Ariana Gillis “Samuel Starr”
(2011)
Restarting banjo and percussion build as two corpses in a graveyard realize they’re alive. They immediately start hatching pranks against a widow’s no-good husband. Gillis is a remarkable songwriter (Bernie Taupin’s a fan), but it’s her ecstatic performance that makes this black comedy so thrilling and oddly life-affirming.
The Magics “Zombie Walk”
(1964)
On what may be this Bell girl group’s only single, they instruct listeners in the finer points of dancing like a zombie. It seems like a pretty complicated dance, involving knees and toes and turns, but the sound is timeless and bizarre, including what may be a kazoo solo in the middle.
The Low Anthem “Ghost Woman Blues”
(2010)
This song tells that old one about picking up a ghost by a cemetery, but whether the woman in the song is truly alive or dead, the song is haunted. Recorded in an empty pasta factory, this Rhode Island group’s album Smart Flesh sounds that way from beginning to end. The very echo of the record emphasizes the silence in the spaces not touched by ringing piano, two singers (a man and a woman), a little string bass and a clarinet solo.
Sonny Richard’s “Panics” with Cindy and Misty “The Voodoo Walk”
(1962)
This sax-driven rocker might be a B-52s record for its sense of ironic sophistication. This is music that knows half the fun of Halloween is dressing up and getting free of oneself. At the same time, Cindy and Misty are not distant singers. They make it sound funny, creepy and naughty all at once when they tell you “The mummy does it with a thud,” and “When the vampire does it, he licks your blood.”
Bruce Springsteen “We Are Alive”
(2012)
Bruce Springsteen has far scarier records—“State Trooper” would serve this purpose best if that were all that mattered about Halloween. But “We Are Alive” does something more with El Dia de Los Muertos. The song tells the story of a Mexican family left to rot while crossing the border, but it also tells the story of murdered railroad workers in 1877 and the four girls killed in a Birmingham Sunday school in 1963. The singer awakens to find himself stone cold and six feet under, worms crawling all over his body, but around him he hears the voices of the remembered. The western guitar and Spanish horns tell us not to fear — through memory, “our souls and spirits rise.” In a society that likes to view death from a comfortable distance, that sentiment cuts straight to the heart of the season.
Follow Danny Alexander on Twitter @dannyalexand.
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