Wake the dead with this list of classic Halloween songs guaranteed to blow away the cobwebs, send shivers down your spine and entice the devil to dance like a drunken dad. Have a hell of a halloween everyone.
When the shadows fall and the moon crawls softly skyward this Halloween, what music do you think the creatures of the night and legions of the damned will get on down and shake their booty to? Here’s a clue, it’s probably not Justin Bieber. Below is a Halloween hit parade of classic songs with darkness at their core and a righteous groove at their heart. If you’re going to invite the dead to dance then do it with style with the following blasts from the pasts that Dracula and his gang of merry monsters waltz to every October the 31st.
Kiss - God of Thunder
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| Puuurlease: For God's sake put the tongue away Gene! |
Before Gene Simmons became a joke he was known as “the Demon.” Listen to this classic from Kiss’s now legendary ‘Destroyer’ album and you’ll see why. The song quite literally rumbles along like the meanest of mean mothers on a Harley Davidson spat straight out of the jaws of Hell. God of Thunder is propelled by Simmons’s powerhouse bass line, which on this track sounds likes an unstoppable force of nature. By rights, a man in high heels and a full face of make-up, with a penchant for sticking out his tongue shouldn’t be scary. However, when Gene growls menacingly about being born on Olympus and raised by the Demons, before commanding the innocent listener to kneel as he proclaims himself as the God of Thunder, hellbent on robbing people of their virgin souls, Simmons sounds very sinister indeed. The song is essentially very disturbing in a psychopathically camp kind of way, and as such sets the perfect tone for a night of Halloween hopelessness.
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
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Creedence front-man John Foggerty was inspired to write “Bad Moon Rising” after watching the “Devil and Daniel Webster.” The Clearwater singer said the song was about “the apocalypse that was going to be visited upon us.” Inspired by one horror film the song became synonymous with another - “An American Werewolf in London.” Despite the song’s gloomy lyrics about the prophesied bad times of earthquakes and hurricanes, over flowing rivers and the rage and ruin which is bound to take your life, ‘Bad moon Rising” bounces along in a breezy optimistic and carefree kind of manner. It’s a cheeky little number to welcome in any apocalypse, or indeed, Halloween!
Kris Kristofferson - To Beat the Devil
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| Beat it bitch! |
This gentle and rambling country tune is not most people’s first choice when thinking what will inject the fear-factor into their Halloween party, but take a listen to the lyrics and you’ll see it fits this strange and sinister night like the pointy hat of a warty warlock. Coming across all world weary and beaten down, as is the habit of country singers everywhere, Kris sings us the story in a voice seasoned with Southern Comfort and Marlboros, of the the time the Devil caught him at his lowest and brought him a drink in a honky tonk. After shooting the breeze for a bit, Satan buys Kris a drink and sings him a mournful song with a haunting melody. What makes the tale worth telling is the twist at the end. Rather than selling his soul to the Prince of Darkness as musicians are usually prone to do, Kris steals Satan’s song and makes his name on the back of it. And guess what? He never pays old Lucifer for the drink either. At previous Halloween parties, Satan has been caught more than once, crying into his beer when the needle touches down on this particular piece of vinyl.
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
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| Ask Yourself! Would you have any sympathy for this man? |
Let’s face it, if the devil is going to have a favourite night it’s going to be Halloween, and if the old horned brute is going to have a favourite song, chances our it’s going to be this voodoo masterpiece by Jagger and co. Written from the viewpoint of Lucifer, who Jagger describes as “a man of wealth and taste,” the song is backed by an intensely unrelenting hypnotic groove. ‘Sympathy for the Devil” sounds like the sort of primitive shamanistic music you could use to invoke the legions of hell itself. The song definitely has power, and if nothing else, it’s contagious hip shaking factor, is guaranteed to get even the dead dancing this Halloween.
The Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down to Georgia
The violin has always been the time honoured instrument of the Lord of the Flies, or to give him his common name, the Devil. This foot-stomping party piece will get even the most reserved vampire goth off their skinny white butts and shaking their booty. The songs tells of how the Devil challenges a young fiddle player called Johnny to a fiddle-playing contest. If Johnny wins he gets a fiddle made of solid gold and if the Devil wins, Johnny forfeits his eternal soul. Fortunately for our hero the Devil loses, but not before you get to hear him tunelessly play a hellishly discordant violin solo, which will get werewolves everywhere howling along this Halloween.
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