Top Ten Scary Songs for Halloween

10. "Waltzinblack" by the Stranglers - The opening salvo from the Stranglers' 1981 oddball sci-fi opus, The Gospel According to the Meninblack, this hypnotic instrumental sets the stage for the `Glers' strange tale of an alien infestation, but it would also make for excellent music to polish butcher knives by, as you cackle-along with the legions of chipmunked-voiced martians whose maniacal giggling threatens to overtake the latter half of the track. Sublimely evil sounding.

9. "Saturday Night Special" by Fad Gadget - A creepy little ditty about shooting people played on the devil's calliope.

8."22 Going on 23" by the Butthole Surfers - From the Locust Abortion Technician album, this track is a dreadfully depressing exchange between a distraught caller and a radio talk show host about the emotional fallout after a sexual assualt, set to a plodding, tuneless dirge. Disorienting bad trip music.

7."Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus - A bit of a cliche? Certainly, but they just don't come any Halloweenier than this dark gem. Hard to believe that this was the band's first single (some might argue that they'd never go onto better it). Though more celebrated for Peter Murphy's portentious hollering and Daniel Ash's effects-laden guitar, I've always found Kevin Haskins' relentless woodblock-tapping and David J's sternum-quaking bass pluckings to be the creepy star of this show. That said, when Ash fully breaks into that signature, lilting riff (at exactly 02:19 on the studio version), a thousand bats wake from their deathly slumber to deliciously blacken the skies. Perfection.

6."11 Moustachioed Daughters" by the Bonzo Dog Band - I must credit the great Ned Raggett from the ILX boards for hipping me to this groovily creepy invokation of Satan from the Bonzos' gloriously silly 1969 album, Urban Spaceman. Sure, it's as giddy and goofy as the band's standard fare, but there is the slightest, disconcerting whiff of brimstone just beneath the surface.

5."Let There Be More Darkness" by Robyn Hitchcock - Though more renowned for his penchant for quirky pop, ex-Soft Boys vocalist Robyn Hitchcock can also apply his surrealist wit to malevolent effect, as on this atmospheric sketch of a song (played with what sounds like bongos, a distorted bass guitar and peculiar snippets of found-sound). It's rather hard to describe. So click here to hear it for yourself.

4. "Epilogue" by Skinny Puppy - You could really choose just about any song by this band for inclusion, as it was generally their business to be jarring and creepy and distasteful at every turn. This particular track, however, always appealed to me. Clocking in at only a minute and ten seconds, this gloomy sound collage samples some ruminations about the Shroud of Turin (presumably from a film. Anyone?) to uneasy efffect, before turning your speakers into Satan's waiting jaws, gaping open to consume your unwitting soul.

3. "Frankie Tear Drop" by Suicide - Another quasi-predictable choice, but Suicide's dismal tale of a hopeless factory worker who kills his own family then goes to Hell is disquieting in its abject suffering, especially as Alan Vega starts to scream like a tortured soul.

2."The Tenderness of Wolves" by Coil - You could really pick any track off this album, Scatology, as the entire record makes for entirely uneasy listening (a fine runner-up selection might the unspeakably distasteful creep-out, "The Sewage Worker's Birthday Party"). What makes "The Tenderness of Wolves" so disturbing for me, however, is the baying and crying in the intro before Gavin Friday starts to sing, conjuring to mind the "baby" in David Lynch's "Eraserhead". Unsettling.

1."Hamburger Lady" by Throbbing Gristle - I work two overnight shifts a week here at the office, and for much of the shift, I'm the only person on the floor. I'll usually put on some music to help pass the time, but this track (off D.O.A.:The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle) is STRICTLY VERBOTTEN, as it never fails to completely creep the bejesus out of me. It arrives slowly like a viscous liquid seeping under your door, punctuated by ominous electronic humming and what sounds like strangled weeping. Gristler Genesis P_Orridge then starts to tell the tale of a woman in a hospital burn unit who is completely charred from the waist up. Both utterly harrowing and strangely compelling.

CLICK HERE FOR TEN MORE SCARY SONGS!

Comments

[js]

I'll second the Hamburger Lady as the creepiest thing that I can think of on wax. But another track that always manages to freak me out, and one that you missed, is the first track on the Golden Palominoes 'Dead Inside' (I think it's the title track), which is the first person account of a woman who's abducted about about to be killed by a stranger, all over the same sort of atmospherics as Hamburger Lady. It's another one that while I like the idea of it, I just don't listen to it all that often because I don't like the feeling of liking it.

[M@tt He1geson]

Good choices...I'd maybe add "Spinal Menegitis" by Ween that really creeps me out...always, and maybe some Current 93, which i've been listening to lately....

[aisleen]

I agree with your list but what aout the song white rabbit by jefferson airplane that song really mananged to creep me out those vocals are haunting

[laurahachy]

great list. i put a few on my playlist for halloween. here is a few that are also my favorites for halloween....
Everyday is halloween by ministry
i put a spell on you by screamin jay hawkins
ghost town by the specials
insanity by oingo boingo
papperbag writter by radiohead
white rabbit by COLLIDE
living dead girl by rob zombie

[Tia]

Great list. My creepy favorites include Calico Wall's I'm a Living Sickness" and Violent Femmes "Country Death Song"

[Aleea]

Very good choices. But another song I think is scary is "boggie woggie wo" by ICP (insane clown posse) THe begining is werid and the song is about murdering children!!

[Draydon]

i like the icp song its great im looking for someones like those