Welcome to the end of The Sixteen Days of Halloween. Today is day 16. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!

Today’s song is "Somebody’s Watching Me"* (1984) by Kennedy Gordy. Gordy is the son of Motown founder and CEO Barry Gordy and went by the stage name "Rockwell" in the 80s when he recorded this song.

The song touches on paranoia in its various forms and makes a number of references to horror movies. It also samples the theme from The Twilight Zone television show.

The song is more notable for its backup singers than for its lead. Guest vocalists Michael and Jermaine Jackson sang the chorus on this one and generated considerable interest in the song given that it was released during Michael’s Thriller heyday. We began The Sixteen Days of Halloween with a Michael Jackson tune. I guess it’s fitting that we should end it with one.

I think Michael’s contribution to the chorus took him all of about five minutes to record and is simply looped over and over (with some occasional Jacksonian "hee-hees" that may or may not actually be him—they can work wonders in the studio). I can’t really distinguish Jermaine’s vocals in the song from Michael’s. They were both doing the high-pitched-sensitive-girly-man thing back then. When the song first came out, I thought that Michael sang on the record because Rockwell was Barry Gordy’s son but have since learned that Michael, Jermaine, and Kennedy were childhood pals.

Rockwell was a one-hit-wonder if ever there was one, but the song is still pretty catchy. It has been covered and sampled by several other groups and remains a radio favorite (especially around Halloween) to this day.

Honorable Mention today goes to "Tubular Bells"* aka "The Exorcist Theme" by Mike Oldfield. It’s a spooky little tune for sure. I’d rank it up there with Bach’s "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" as one of the scarier instrumentals I’ve heard.

So, there you have it. Khen’s 16 Days of Halloween tunes. To recap, here they are again:

Day	Song	Honorable Mention
1	"Thriller" by Michael Jackson
2	"Monster Mash" by Bobby Pickett	"Monster Mash" by the Beach Boys
3	"People Are Strange" by The Doors	"Riders on the Storm" by The Doors
4	"Rapture" by Blondie	"Rapture Riders" by Blondie and The Doors
5	"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band
6	"Rhiannon" by Fleetwood Mac	"Witch Woman" by The Eagles
7	"Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr.
8	"(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" by Johnny Cash	"Highwayman" by The Highwaymen
9	"Feed My Frankenstein" by Alice Cooper	"Welcome to My Nightmare" by Alice Cooper, "Devil’s Food" by Alice Cooper
10	"The Time Warp" and "Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by Bach, "Tales From The Crypt" from the TV show, "Nightmare on Elm Street" from the movie of the same name, "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon, "Funk Nassau" from The Blues Brothers 2000 soundtrack
11	"Shot In The Dark" by Ozzy Osbourne	"The Ultimate Sin" by Ozzy Osbourne
12	"(Don’t Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult	"Godzilla" by Blue Öyster Cult
13	"Spooky" by Atlanta Rhythm Section
14	"The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden	"Super Freak" by Rick James
15	"Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
16	"Somebody’s Watching Me" by Kennedy Gordy (Rockwell)	"Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield

 I said at the outset that these weren’t in any particular order, but I’m sure the teeming masses around the world are dying to see how I’d rank them, so here you go:

Rank	Day	Song	Honorable Mention
1	2	"Monster Mash" by Bobby Pickett	"Monster Mash" by the Beach Boys
2	3	"People Are Strange" by The Doors	"Riders on the Storm" by The Doors
3	11	"Shot In The Dark" by Ozzy Osbourne	"The Ultimate Sin" by Ozzy Osbourne
4	12	"(Don’t Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult	"Godzilla" by Blue Öyster Cult
5	15	"Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
6	6	"Rhiannon" by Fleetwood Mac	"Witch Woman" by The Eagles
7	5	"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band
8	8	"(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" by Johnny Cash	"Highwayman" by The Highwaymen
9	13	"Spooky" by Atlanta Rhythm Section
10	4	"Rapture" by Blondie	"Rapture Riders" by Blondie and The Doors
11	10	"The Time Warp" and "Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by Bach, "Tales From The Crypt" from the TV show, "Nightmare on Elm Street" from the movie of the same name, "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon, "Funk Nassau" from The Blues Brothers 2000 soundtrack
12	9	"Feed My Frankenstein" by Alice Cooper	"Welcome to My Nightmare" by Alice Cooper, "Devil’s Food" by Alice Cooper
13	14	"The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden	"Super Freak" by Rick James
14	1	"Thriller" by Michael Jackson
15	16	"Somebody’s Watching Me" by Kennedy Gordy (Rockwell)	"Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield
16	7	"Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr.

Probably something like that, but it’s hard to say. I like some of the honorable mention songs from one day better than the actual winners on others. Also, some of the movie and TV songs from Day 10 would need to be split out to really be fair to everyone. I certainly like "Werewolves of London" better than "The Time Warp," for example.

So, in the spirit of talking about creepy things on All Hallow’s Eve, I’ll close with some final thoughts for Mr. Michael Jackson in the form of an open letter. As the clock draws near midnight, the moon hides her face behind the murky clouds, and the Halloween revelers are safe at home divvying up their booty and getting ready for school tomorrow, here are a few parting thoughts for one of the creepier people alive today:

Michael,

Now that you’ve beaten the molestation charges again and moved to a country that conveniently doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S., I have some thoughts on how you might straighten your life out—some advice on how to end the freak show that began in the aftermath of Thriller and continues to this day:

1. Stop taking the female hormones to keep your voice high. Let it change and do whatever it was supposed to have done 30 years ago. The drugs are messing up your head and fooling you into believing that you actually want to look like Sela Ward. Get off all drugs for which you don’t have a legitimate medical need immediately. If you’re addicted to some of them, get help, but get off them.

2. Stop taking the skin bleaching pills. I don’t think you really have vitiligo. You didn’t as a kid, and most vitiligo sufferers exhibit symptoms in childhood. I think you wanted to turn yourself into a white guy. Unfortunately, this, combined with your manic addiction to plastic surgery, has you looking more like a white woman than a white man (see earlier remark about Sela Ward).

3. Don’t get any more plastic surgery unless it’s to undo damage done by previous surgeries and can be done safely. Lose the overdone, cleft chin and Chuck Connors jaw line. Lose the ridiculous cheekbones. If those are implants and can be safely removed, get ‘em removed. Get back as much of your natural appearance as possible. The old Michael looked just fine.

4. Lose the page-boy wig and go back to your own hair. No one believes that’s yours, man. It looks like it spends its nights on a Styrofoam head. Get up tomorrow morning and leave it there.

5. Lose the lipstick, false eyelashes, and eyeliner. Stop wearing makeup.  I’ve heard you had your eyeliner permanently tattooed on. Nice move. That might limit your options now, but do what you can to undo all this cosmetic stuff without further injuring yourself.

6. Quit spending more than you make. Get your financial affairs in order and make sure you’re set up money-wise from now on. Lose the extravagance and live within your means. Make a living where you can, but always spend less than you make. Do what you have to in order to lower your expenses and get your debts paid off.

7. Get back to your old music. Do some Jackson 5 numbers—"ABC" would be a good start. Don’t make statements or appearances; make music.

8. Quit thinking of yourself as some type of music royalty and quit comparing yourself to Elvis and the like. Be a normal guy and an artist. Live a simple life and don’t focus so much on your legacy that you neglect the present. Your legacy will take care of itself if you take care of the present.

9. Stay away from kids in general and don’t ever, ever pal around with any that aren’t your own. I imagine that getting off the hormones and other drugs will do wonders for you in this department, but in case not: use some commonsense, for cryin’ out loud. Even if you have those feelings, you can’t indulge them. Get yourself some help, and for God’s sake, don’t hurt anyone else. Even if you never molested anyone and your intentions are completely honest, it’s a different world now, Michael, and you’ll ruin what’s left of your life if you don’t handle this area of it properly.

10. Get away from all the people and things that make you unhuman. Learn to be a person again. Get away from material things and artificiality. You have constructed a bogus world for yourself that you are now trapped within. It has become your prison, a veritable house of horrors featuring crazies like Liz Taylor, Liza Minelli, and whoever is in the absurd menagerie that is your current entourage. Only you can free yourself. Get back to basics, to who you were when you were a kid just starting out, loving the music and loving performing. Become a man and live life honestly.

If you do all these things and get yourself back into some semblance of who you once were, you ought to go on TV via interviews and such and apologize for the pain you’ve caused people and for all your Howard Hughes-ian weirdness. Assure people you’re back to your old self—that easy-going, good-natured wunderkind with the boundless energy and the radiant smile. I never dug your music, but a lot of people did and would again if you’d just get your act together.

Sincerely,

Never a Fan, But Struck by the Tragedy of Your Life

Dallas, TX 

 

Today’s Halloween song is “Bad Moon Rising”* by Creedence Clearwater Revival.  It’s a John Fogerty (the lead singer) classic and has stood the test of time.

 

I mentioned in an early post on this thread the irony of the fact that "Werewolves of London" wasn’t used on the soundtrack for the movie An American Werewolf in London.  This song, however, was—along with Van Morrison’s Moonance, which I’ve also covered in the past.

 

The song drips with American deep south mysticism.  The whole notion of a “bad moon” in the first place is straight out of hillbilly folklore and superstition.  “Bad Moon Rising” takes the theme a little further and gets into apocalyptic events (I use “apocalyptic” here in the modern sense of the word; originally “apocalypse” meant simply “revelation”—there was no connotation of anything good or bad about the revelation.  This is where the modern titling of the last book of the Bible as “The Revelation of St. John the Divine” comes from even though it was known in ancient times as the “Apocalypse of John.”  This is how the notion of a mystical revelation came to be associated with Armageddon, the end of the world, and so forth.

 

The thing I like most about this song is the contrast between the chirpy melody and the dark lyrics.  It’s a happy little tune carried along by some light 60s-era guitar.  It makes a great dance number.  If you didn’t listen to the words, you might think it was celebrating something.  Not so—check out these lines, for example:

 

 

I can see why they used it in An American Werewolf in London and why there have been a couple of horror-themed B-movies that alluded to it.  Anyway, hopefully this Halloween won’t greet you with a bad moon.  If it does, don’t go out--at least not without your magic rabbit’s foot and your lucky horseshoe.

 

 

Today’s song is “The Number of the Beast”* by Iron Maiden.  Yes, the title says it all.  It’s another of these #$@#$ heavy metal Devil songs.  Can’t British metalheads find anything else to sing about?  Nevertheless, it’s a pretty decent song, and, given the lyrics, melody, and subject matter, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it.  Not that every song on the list has to be out-and-out creepy.  Today it was a contest between Rick James’ “Super Freak”* and this one, with this one winning out because it has more of a horror theme, and, hey, “Super Freak” ain’t scary at all, especially to the men of the world.  Most would love to meet a girl like Rick sings about, Mom notwithstanding.

 

“The Number of the Beast” was inspired by a nightmare bassist Steve Harris had after watching the movie “Damien:  Omen II.”  And, of course, the overall theme is straight out of the Bible.  It features copious amounts of religious and occult imagery for those who like mixing the two.

 

The song is right up there with The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” for featuring one of the best rock ‘n’ roll screams ever.  Supposedly, this was due to vocalist Bruce Dickenson being forced to sing the song over-and-over for hours on end which caused him to eventually lose it and scream into the mic in protest (hello, vocal cord scarring).  From what I’ve read, Dickinson hasn’t been able to hit the high pitch of that scream since the song was first recorded.

 

Although the song mentions fire and chants, it’s probably not one you’d sit around the campfire and sing:

 

 

I almost feel like apologizing for including it, but, honestly, The List wouldn’t be complete without some of these metal songs.  Every other time they sing, they touch on horror-related themes and subjects--it's their gig.  Hopefully, the better metal bands pull this off without getting too far into the farcical.  Hopefully, they do horror without being horrible; they frighten without being frightful.  Like a lot of heavy metal bands, Iron Maiden—a band that took its name from a device used for torture—celebrates darker things like pain and torture and sometimes ventures off into the tortuous.  They stick to a pretty basic set of topics and themes and beat the ever-living crap out of them in every song.  They check subtlety and finesse at the door.  And right about the time they’ve worn out a particular subject, they do it once more just for kicks.  That said, this is generally a good rock ‘n’ roll song and will give you something to think about as you’re out and about looking for candy this year.

 

Today’s Halloween number is the cover of “Spooky”* by the Atlanta Rhythm Section.  Originally recorded* by the Dennis Yost and Classics IV, I think the ARS version is actually the best one out there.  I know I have some preternatural bias against drummer-vocalists (Yost was also the band’s drummer) because they seem to be more about percussion than the carrying a tune, but the ARS version is simply fuller and more soulful, in my opinion.

 

As for why the song is on the list, it’s not that the melody or the lyrics are terribly creepy, it’s just that the song is, well, spooky (sorry).  The song gets on The List for actually mentioning Halloween (one of the few non-horror songs to do so), and it’s a great listen any time of the year, which was one of my main criteria.  Check out the lyrics:

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I’ve had spooky girlfriends before.  And I’ve been haunted by a few of them, so I can relate.  I don’t know about proposing on Halloween, though.  That’s a little out there if you ask me.  I’ve got better things to do on All Hallow’s Eve :-)

 

The Atlanta Rhythm Section had a fairly unremarkable run.  Like a lot of southern rock bands, they peaked in the 70s.  They were viewed as more of mellower Lynyrd Skynyrd than a distinctive band unto themselves.  They had a few hits, and this cover is one of them.  If nothing else, I get a kick out of the line “Just like a ghost, you’ve been a-hauntin’ my dreams.”  A-hauntin’?  Who wrote this?  Dolly Parton?  Corny lyrics aside, it’s a great song and ARS pulls it off superbly—a soulful number that is still fresh after all these years.

 

 

Today’s Halloween tune is “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”* by Blue Öyster Cult.  Considering BÖC considered themselves heavy rock (and their manager actually coined the term “heavy metal” based on the heaviness of their music and the use of the alchemy sign for lead, one of the heaviest metals, in their logo), “DFTR” is pretty light fair for them.  Nevertheless, I’ve always liked the song.  The references to the Grim Reaper (Death personified) and murder-suicide pact intonations make it a little creepy (hence ending up on The List), but I generally find the song soothing.  Check out this excerpt from the lyrics:

 

 

Sounds a lot like a love song with a tragic ending or a happy ending, depending on your point of view.

 

In BÖC mythology (derived from their manager’s 60s era poetry), the Blue Öyster Cult is a group of aliens who secretly guide earth’s history.  For me, they were simply a more cerebral heavy metal band.  These aren’t your average “devil-sex-drugs-violence” heavy metal lyrics.  There’s a little more here than that.

 

Another BÖC song that gets honorable mention for The List is “Godzilla.”*  It’s more of a traditional heavy metal song with a great monster flavor and fits nicely on The List with Ozzy’s tunes.  There’s a great line in it that goes something like “Oh no, they say he’s got to go!  Godzilla!” that a friend of mine has used for many of his ex-wives and girlfriends just before they became exs:  “Oh no, they say she’s got to go!  Girlzilla!”  OK, I guess you had to be there.

Today’s Halloween tune is “Shot in the Dark”* by Ozzy Osbourne.  It’s probably my favorite Ozzy song.  It’s not the first song people usually mention when they think of horror-type music from Ozzy.  There are plenty of other good choices in his vast catalogue of Devil music (he is the “Prince of Darkness,” after all), “Bark at the Moon,”* “Mr. Crowley”* (about Aleister Crowley, the notorious British occultist once dubbed “The Wickedest Man in the World”), and many, many others.  Ozzy went way beyond the bad boy image most rockers go after straight into Devil territory.  He wanted to top them all.  Unfortunately, he spent more time pimping his image and becoming a caricature of himself than actually producing good music, but I still like a few of his tunes (and a few from Sabbath:  “Paranoid”* and “War Pigs”* are both good songs). 

 

Ozzy bit the head off a live dove once in a meeting with executives at CBS Records (a stunt that got him banned from CBS’ buildings for a time) and had to have rabies shots after biting the heat off of a live bat during a concert.  He once went on a rampage around his house and killed his family’s pet cats (all 17 of them). Yes, he was and is a mental case.  But, especially while Randy Rhoads was alive, he put out some good music occasionally.

 

“Shot in the Dark” was actually recorded after Rhoads’ death.  It was written by Ozzy’s bassist at the time, Phil Soussan.  The melody’s got an eerie siren-song quality to it, but the lyrics are what get it on The List:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stalking the night?  Voices inside your head?  Definitely one to keep away from the serial killers in the family. 

 

The first verse calls to mind images of Ozzy from the “Bark at the Moon” album cover prowling about the night, devouring whatever he finds.  As crazy as he is, the very thought of it is a little spooky if you ask me.  Check out the video here.  For a good laugh, check out the 80s metal outfits Ozzy and company don in the video.  I swear to Zeus, he wears his eye makeup the same way my teenage daughter does.  Freaks me out, especially in this video.  Modern day Ozzy with his dark locks look a lot like my Aunt Betty—uncannily so.  Aunt Betty plucks out her eyebrows completely then paints them back on—truly horrific up close.  She also dies her hair jet black, just like Ozzy.  I keep waiting for her to bite the head off a bat.

 

“Shot in the Dark” is from the album The Ultimate Sin (1986), whose title track* is not a bad listen either.  If I remember correctly, it’s about nuclear war (that being the ultimate sin).  It’s got an incredibly goofy video that you can view here.  Several tracks on the album at least hint at concerns about a nuclear holocaust.  According to the liner notes, the guitarist on “Shot in the Dark” is none other than Dweezil Zappa, son of Frank Zappa, and a guitar prodigy in his own right.  He was all of about 17 years old when he played on this song, and, if you give it a listen, I think you’ll agree he completely tore it inside-out—a marvelous performance.

 

Today’s Halloween tune is actually several.  Today we’ll talk about some songs from horror movies and the like.  First up is “The Time Warp”* from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  This one isn’t terribly spooky, but the lyrics and unusualness of the tune get in on The List.  Another semi-spooky tune from Rocky Horror that I happen to like a little better is “Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me”* (commonly known as “Creature of the Night”).  “Creature,” as I like to call it, is a fairly decent song, even if it is buried in lots of movie dialogue and other nonsense (C’mon, you know you go to midnight showings of Rocky Horror and shout out these lines at the screen!  Admit it!).

 

Next up is “Toccata and Fugue in D minor”* by Bach.  This one has been used in countless movie soundtracks, and you’ll recognize it immediately if you give it a listen.  I know I said I wouldn’t use instrumentals in The List, but, hey, I changed my mind.  This one belongs on any list of Halloween tunes.  Rumor has it that its spookiness comes from Bach simply wanting a piece that would thoroughly test an organ.  That's right:  the creepiest organ composition ever was probably written as an instrument tuning aid.

 

Next is “Tales from the Crypt,”* another instrumental.  I know I said I wouldn’t use TV series themes, but, hey, I changed my mind.  I’m doing that a lot today.  This isn’t a goofy little sing-along like the Addams Family theme.  It’s a haunting concoction that oozes with mystery.  Right up there with it is “Nightmare on Elm Street.”*  I can personally attest that “Nightmare” is a great song to make out to.  The way the drums and synthesizer play against one another makes for a truly eerie listening experience, especially when you’re in the backseat of a car and the only other thing breaking the darkness is the faint glow of the dashboard.

 

I'd be remiss if I didn't include “Werewolves of London”* in some form or fashion on The List.  Ironically, it was not used on the soundtrack for An American Werewolf in London, though David Naughton (the star of the movie and “that Dr. Pepper guy” from the 70s) mused aloud about how inexplicable it was that the song wasn’t used in the movie on its DVD release.  The song was used on the soundtrack for The Color of Money (that execrable Tom Cruise tribute to 80s shamelessness).  It’s a real pity it got mixed up with a movie like that, but it seems to have come through relatively unscathed. 

 

The funny, campy lyrics are a large part of what makes “Werewolves” so timeless:

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese menu in hand?  Perfect hair?  Sounds like Jack Nicholson.  (By the way, Lee Ho Fook’s is a real place in London.  Watch out for the shrimp—mine tasted like motor oil.)

 

Warren Zevon and company outdid themselves on this one.  It’s a horror song classic.  Ah-ooo!

 

The last one I’ll cover today is “Funk Nassau”* from the movie Blues Brothers 2000.  This one is not terribly spooky, but the boys are transformed into some type of green-skinned zombies by it, so I guess it counts.  The incomparable Erykah Badu plays a voodoo queen and makes the song her very own.  Dallas-born Erykah is one of the greatest talents in R&B.  She has the beauty and style of a Beyoncé and the raw musical ability of a Billie Holiday.  Her vivacious rendition of this song is one of the few bright spots in the entire movie and a show-stealer if ever there was one.

 

Today’s Halloween tune is “Feed My Frankenstein”* by Alice Cooper.  I told you the other day that we’d soon be getting back to “real” music, and we’re there now.  The lyrics for this one speak for themselves:

 

 

 

 

 

Fur tea cup?  Alice, you naughty boy, you!

 

Of course, Alice is known for his radical stage shows featuring copious amounts of horror and gothic allusions.  He used to hire magician James Randi (“The Amazing Randi”) to set up some of the props and effects used in his shows, including a number featuring a Guillotine, if you can believe that.  You can thank Alice for people like Marilyn Manson, KISS, and the whole Goth movement because he basically started it all.  Cooper’s attempts at outdoing other extreme performers of the 60s and 70s led to increasingly more outrageous onstage antics until his theatrics basically eclipsed his music.  He became more about showmanship and bizarre concert behavior than making interesting music.  Unfortunately, his schtick has replicated in viral fashion to the point of becoming its own music genre.

 

I like this one a little better than the tune most people cite when they think of scary Alice Cooper music, “Welcome to My Nightmare.”*  I guess the biggest reason is that I simply like the music better.  This one is more of a traditional rock tune, with the requisite dose of double entendres that all good rock songs must have.  You get that mischievous look on your face every time you hear that line about the ice cream cone on the radio and you know he's not really talking about ice cream.  You, he, and 40 million others belong to a little secret club that only teenagers and rock 'n roll aficionados can join.  You share a language that regular people don't understand--it goes right over their heads.  The Halloween List tunes are supposed to be about fun and decent music, not necessarily the creepiest, nastiest stuff on the jukebox, so I chose this one over "Nightmare".  An interesting factoid about the Welcome to My Nightmare album is that it contains Vincent Price’s first narration of a rock 'n roll tune (coming years before Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”), and it’s actually pretty well done.  If you’d like to check it out, listen to “Devil’s Food”* on Welcome to My Nightmare.

I was busy yesterday, so you get two Halloween tunes today.  Again, the songs on The Halloween List aren’t necessarily about Halloween, per se.  They have spooky lyrics, cover creepy or macabre subjects, or feature eerie melodies.  And they're songs I can handle listening to regardless of the time of year.

 

Today’s first song is “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky.”*  It was originally written in the late 40s and has been recorded by everyone from Bing Crosby to Blondie’s Deborah Harry (for the Three Business Men soundtrack) to The Blues Brothers (for the Blues Brothers 2000 soundtrack).

 

The song recounts a cowboy’s vision of the Devil’s herd of cattle thundering across the sky being driven by the damned.  The cattle have glowing, red eyes, breathe smoke and fire, and are generally scary beasties.  One of the ghost riders warns the cowboy that he’d better change his ways or he’ll end up joining them, chasing the Devil’s vile herd for all eternity.

 

The lyrics and the melody are simply outstanding on this song.  Growing up in the southwest as I did, the song calls to mind many memories of ominous dark clouds rolling in on the horizon, ushering in horrific storms that bore down on all of creation—man and beast alike.  Mix in a healthy dose of southern religion, and you’ve got yourself a song with some very potent imagery.

 

Of all the versions I’ve heard, the one by Johnny Cash is by far my favorite and is the one I’ve linked above.  His thundering baritone and the top-notch production on the track itself make it a good listen regardless of whether you’re a Cash fan or enjoy country music.  I love the juxtaposition between the western-style guitar and the horn section in this version—very well done if you ask me.  And also think Cash was wise to sing on the chorus (most versions, including Vaughn Monroe’s—one of the earliest—have backup singers carry the chorus).

 

The number of covers and the many references to this song in American pop culture attest to its resonance with people across all ages and demographic strata.  Its longevity and continuing appeal attest to its uniqueness as a song.  Believe it or not, there are actually web sites dedicated to “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” and lots and lots of video versions of it up on YouTube.  Here’s one where a kid is going to town on a mandolin of all things playing it.  Nice tune, Stan Jones, and a worthy addition to The Halloween List.

 

While I’m on the subject of Johnny Cash and spooky songs, here’s another one just for good measure.  The song’s title is “Highwayman,”* a Jimmy Webb cover about outlaw types dying and rising from the dead repeatedly across time.  It was recorded by The Highwaymen, the country music super group consisting of Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.  It has a somber, almost surreal, tone and gets an honorable mention for The List.  You can find the lyrics here.  I think it’s worth a listen if for nothing other reason than to hear Cash sing “I fly a starship, across the universe divide.”  A starship, Johnny?  I had no idea.  I thought you sang country music—some really good, some not so good.  I keep envisioning Cash in Captain Kirk attire barking orders like “Beam me up, Willie,” “Shields up, Miss June Carter,” “Phasers on stun, Waylon.” Imagine Cash doing the opening Star Trek monologue in that warbling baritone of his:  “Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of a country boy from Arkansas..."  The lyrics border on the farcical, but it’s still a good song.

 

Today’s Halloween tune is “Ghostbusters”* from the soundtrack of the 1984 movie of the same name.  Ray Parker, Jr. wrote and sang the song, and it hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1984.  It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

 

“Ghostbusters” is more fun than spooky, but I’d feel remiss if I didn’t include it on a list of Halloween-related tunes.  It’s not a great song—I much prefer Parker’s “A Woman Needs Love”*—but it’s a fun tune and evokes lots of memories of the movie, which I thoroughly enjoyed at the time.

 

In a strange twist, Parker ended up being sued over “Ghostbusters.”  Turns out the ghosts he maligned in the song felt they’d been defamed, and the deceased among them decided to take legal action under their former names among the living.  I’m just kidding.  He was sued, but not by ghosts—by Huey Lewis (of Huey Lewis and the News).  The producers of the movie had approached Lewis about using his song “I Want a New Drug”* but were rebuffed.  They then turned to Parker and asked him to write a song similar to it.  Lewis alleged that the melody from “Ghostbusters” was so similar that it actually amounted to plagiarism.  They ended up settling out-of-court, with the terms of the settlement to be kept confidential.  Years later, Parker sued Lewis for allegedly breaking the terms of their settlement by discussing them on an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music.  They again settled out-of-court in 1995.  You can click on the links above to listen to the two songs back-to-back and make up your own mind about whether Parker stole from Lewis.

 

This song is so un-spooky that I almost feel like apologizing for including it, but we'll get back to really scary stuff in the days to come, I promise.

Well, today’s Halloween tune was going to be “Witchy Woman” by the Eagles, but the Eagles are one of the few bands that won’t allow their songs to be streamed as part of a Napster subscription.  You gotta buy each tune separately to listen to it.  So, rather than fool with that, I decided to switch songs.  Today’s spooky tune is “Rhiannon”* by Fleetwood Mac.

 

“Rhiannon” is a pretty familiar tune to anyone who knows much about Fleetwood Mac.  Stevie Nicks wrote it, and it’s one of her signature songs in concert.  What most people don’t know is that it’s about a figure from Welsh mythology.  Rhiannon was either a Celtic deity or a witch of some type, depending on whom you ask.  Check out these lyrics from the song:

 

 

 

 

Takes to the sky like a bird in flight?  How so?  On a broom, perhaps?  In the words of Dana Carvey's Church Lady, "Isn't that special?!"

 

So, she’s a flighty woman, a little fickle perhaps, not unlike Nicks herself.  But, more than that, the woman has special powers.  She rings like a bell through the night, but she also slinks about silently like a cat.  She is the darkness.  A creepy brew of similes and metaphors, if you ask me.

 

Rumors abounded for years that Nicks was some type of witch or involved in Wicca herself.  One reason for this is that she has a near obsession with black clothes and flowing gowns and shaws.  That's practically all she wears in concert.  Another is that she copyrights her music under Welsh Witch Music.  Nicks has routinely dismissed these rumors by saying that, hey, she just likes black clothes and that Welsh Witch Music is just a reference to "Rhiannon," not an indication of any interest in witches or witchcraft.

 

Regardless, “Rhiannon” is a spooky little tune that evokes images of black cats, pitch-black darkness, and a woman creeping around silently in the night.  The ethereal melody overlaid with Nicks' little-girl voice calls to mind occult imagery--more in the vein of The Blair Witch Project than pointy hats and Bewitched.  If the notion of a malevolent female presence haunting your nights doesn’t send a chill or two up your spine, you probably haven't yet had a psycho girlfriend or a mother-in-law.  Just be wary of anyone offering you an apple.   

Today’s song is “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”* by the Charlie Daniels Band.  I blogged about this one just last week, but I still felt it belonged on the list.  Give it a listen if you haven’t already and check out the interplay between the bass line and the fiddle during the Devil’s solo—hot stuff!  As a matter of fact, the entirety of the Devil’s solo is really a rock tune, and a pretty darn good one at that.  There’s nothing country about it.  The fiddle is really little more than a sound effect.  Johnny’s solo, by contrast, is country to the core—with ample doses of bluegrass, mountain music, and (dare I say it?) a bit of country’s version of rap--square dance music--thrown in just for good measure :-)

 

The song is played in D-minor, but was originally written as an instrumental and played an octave lower.  I like it better the way it is—it’s hard to imagine the bass-fiddle interplay working if it were played much lower than it is.  I also like the lyrics the CDB added.  The words take it from an interesting fiddle composition to an undeniable classic.

 

If you square off against the Devil and win, you automatically get consideration for the list.  If you beat his diabolical band of rockers with a smoking country riff, you definitely get on the list.  What better subject for a Halloween song than a battle of the bands featuring the Devil and his minions versus a country boy and his hillbilly band mates?

  

Today’s Halloween tune is “Rapture,”* by Blondie from their album Autoamerican (1980).  It was one of the first rap tunes by a white band and the first hip-hop/rap tune ever to reach #1 on the U.S. Billboard Top 100.

 

The lyrics are fairly nonsensical, but, overall, the tune is a good listen.  It gets into some crazy stuff about a “man from Mars” eating everything from the listener to cars and bars that don’t have televisions.  Regardless, the rhyming and rhythm work, and Deborah Harry’s dreamy vocals on the chorus juxtaposed against her urban chick rapping make for an interesting mix.  Deborah is a former Playboy Bunny, and the notion of her vigorously embracing what had traditionally been considered “black” music resonated with people in 1980.  I don’t think many white people even realized they were listening to a white girl do black music or that it was a hip-hop/rap concoction.  They just liked the song.  And it didn’t hurt that, like most hip-hop, it was also a good dance tune.

 

The song has had surprising staying power.  Even now, a quarter century later, people of all races still groove to it.  The divide between so-called “white” and “black” music is all but gone, and rap is alive and well with whites, people of African descent, and everyone in between. BTW, help me out with a term here.  I don't much care for the term “people of African descent” but I’m having trouble thinking of anything better.  (When did we get so preoccupied with labels?)  Perhaps you can help.  I don’t like the term “people of color,” because I’m white and, believe it or not, I’ve got “color.”  We aren’t albinos.  If you exclude me from the color group, you are either blind or dishonest, and doing so doesn’t make up for past discrimination, anyway.  I don’t like “African-American” because— surprise, surprise—not all non-African blacks are Americans, nor are all black Americans of African descent.  And that’s why I don’t much care for the term “people of African descent.”  I have a good friend who’s black and lives in America but is not of African descent—at least not directly—he’s a Dane.  And he doesn’t like being referred to as an African-American.  He likes to reply, “First of all, I’m not a U.S. citizen, so there’s a question as to whether I’m an American.  Second, I’m not from Africa; I’m from Denmark.  I never lived in Africa, and as far as I know, neither did any of my ancestors.”  That said, the term “black” is now frowned upon, so I’m just as clueless as the white boys in Glory Road as to how to refer to my darker-complexioned friends.  I’d just as soon not use any special term, but that is evidently also frowned upon, so still I struggle.

 

Back to the song.  Blondie wasn’t a great band and didn’t last long (they’ve reformed a time or two, but they basically broke up in 1982), but this is a descent song.  The church bells give it an eerie feel; it’s a dreamy sort of ride that threatens to take you places you might not want to go.  Mix in a great guitar solo toward the end of the track, and you’ve got yourself an enchanting little Halloween tune.

 

Interestingly, earlier this year, famed “mashup” artist Mark Vidler fused one of yesterday’s Halloween songs, “Riders on the Storm,” with “Rapture” to create “Rapture Riders.”  Some have criticized the end result, but I happen to like it.  It successfully reinvigorates both songs, and has the distinction of being the only release in music history where the introduction of Jim Morrison lyrics actually made a song more coherent :-)  Blondie embraced the project and released the new mix on their album Blondie’s Greatest Hits:  Sound & Vision, and it became a top-ten hit on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart.  Video for the two songs (the original video for “Rapture” as well as concert footage from The Doors) was edited together to create a video for the new mix.  You can view it here.  An interesting side note:  the original video for "Rapture" was among the first ever played on MTV.  It was aired within the first 24 hours of MTV coming online.

 

Today’s Halloween tune is “People Are Strange”* by The Doors from the album Strange Days (1967).  It’s a quirky little tune about feeling alienated that shows off Jim Morrison’s eclectic vocal style really well.  In addition to “Light My Fire,”* The Doors performed the song on the Ed Sullivan show.  You can see the clip here.  They ran afoul of the network due to Morrison agreeing to change a line in “Light My Fire” from “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” to “Girl, we couldn’t get much better,” then famously reneging on live TV.  Sullivan refused to shake their hands after the stunt, and they were never invited back to the show.  Morrison later claimed that nervousness made him louse up the revised lyrics and accidentally revert to the original ones.  You watch the clip and see what you think—was it an accident or wasn’t it?  Frankly, I think the dramatization of this scene in Oliver Stone’s movie The Doors is funnier than the reality of it.  I love how nuts the guy in the control room goes.  All over singing about getting high.  My, how things have changed.  Check out Stone’s recreation of the incident here.

 

“People Are Strange” was also one of the first songs to have a music video produced for it.  You can find the video here.

 

I love the dichotomy between the chirpiness of the melody and the depressing topic the song is actually about.  Alienation?  That’s a bluesy thing you usually sing about to a bluesy melody, but this song defies that convention and dresses up its subject matter in a happy little tune that bounces along and obscures the underlying heaviness.

 

The lyrics are simple but poignant:

 

 

These are quintessential Morrison words if ever I heard them.  He was known for writing poetry, and these lines are at least superficially poetic.  This type of thing is what started the band.  Morrison and Ray Manzarek ran into one another by chance on a beach, Morrison mentioned that he liked to write poetry, Manzarek asked to hear some, and the rest is history.

 

Morrison was an interesting dude.  An Air Force brat, he was raised by parents who didn’t believe in spanking.  Instead, they used the old tried and true military technique of “dressing down” that basically amounted to screaming insults and demeaning the person in question until he or she broke down.  Jim’s older brother, Andy, broke down many times, but, according to him, Jim never did.  He was a model student and aspired to follow in his father’s footsteps in the military until he discovered alcohol and drugs in his teens.  I wonder if his parents’ eccentricities had anything to do with his problems later in life.  In the words of Michael Keaton’s character in Nightshift, “Living with a lunatic does somethin' to ya.”

 

Jim started out in life as a pudgy little guy.  Years of drug abuse and chronic alcoholism trimmed him down into the svelte “young lion” image that most people are familiar with and that was used on The Best of The Doors album cover.  In his later years in the band, he gained a considerable amount of weight and grew a heavy beard, but his record company continued to use older photos of him so as not to damage “the Lizard King’s” image as a rock god.  You can watch an interview with him at this point in his life here.

 

In addition to being known for staying drunk for days at a time and occasionally exposing himself publicly, he was also quite the lady’s man.  Despite having a live-in girlfriend, he had trysts with several famous female artists including Grace Slick (of Jefferson Airplane) and Janis Joplin (an encounter that left her in tears).  He grabbed a hold of the reins of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and never really let go.  Between his chronic alcoholism, a brain that was perpetually addled by psychedelic drugs, and all the pressure that comes from stardom and living your life in a fishtank, he was a tragedy waiting to happen.

 

Morrison died in 1971 at the age of 27 in his bathtub in his chateaux in Paris.  Though no autopsy was performed, the cause of death was reported to have been a heart attack.  A fair amount of mystery surrounded Morrison’s death, and his gravesite has become one of Paris’ most popular attractions.  For all the obsessions Morrison himself had with death, it’s fitting that now his fans seem to be obsessed with his death. 

 

A couple of years after he died, Morrison's common-law wife, Pamela Courson, said that the actual cause of death was a heroin overdose.  A drug addict herself, she’d recently introduced Jim to the drug, and, because he was afraid of needles, she shot him up with the dose that killed him.  No one knows whether what she said was true.  She made lots of different claims about his death, some of them conflicting with one another.  She died of a drug overdose herself in 1974.  She was also just 27 years old.

 

Another good “spooky” Doors song is “Riders on the Storm.”*  It’s got a wonderfully camp 60s kind of mellow groove going in it, although the lyrics sound like Morrison was on one of his classic drug trips when he penned them.  I’ve heard from reliable sources that this song is a good one to sit around and get stoned to—not that I’d know anything about that myself.

 

The song was inspired by “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky,” a country song and another member of the Halloween list that I’ll get to in a few days.  Innovative for the time, it incorporates wind and rain sound effects to give it a spookier feel.  After laying down the main vocal track, Morrison laid down a second track in which he whispered the lyrics over the original track in order to give it the haunting feel it has in the final version.

 

I love the bass in this one.  It’s one of the most distinctive bass tracks in any song ever.  You hear the first few bars and immediately know what song is coming.  I think the distinctiveness of the bass is one of the main reasons the song has stood the test of time so well.

 

“Riders on the Storm” is based loosely on the story of murderer Billy Cook and his interstate killing spree.  He posed as a hitchhiker and killed one person after another until he was finally captured (he was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin in 1952).  That’s what the line “if you give this man a ride, sweet memory will die” refers to.  Morrison often seemed to have an obsession with the macabre.  It’s a little weird when you think about it, but it makes for a good entry on the Halloween list.

 

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*Click on the link to listen to the song.  You’ll be directed to Napster's NapsterLinks page, at which you can set up a free account if you don’t already have one to hear any song in their library.  If you already have an account, sign in, and the tune you clicked will start playing.

 

Today’s Halloween tune is Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash.”  I know I said no novelty songs—and some consider this one just that—but I happen to like it and can groove to it any time of the year, not just Halloween, so it gets on the list.

 

The song has been covered ad nauseam by everyone from The Beach Boys to Disney’s Goofy character.  Even Boris Karloff himself, whom Pickett mimics in the vocals, did a version of the song on the 60s show Shindig!

 

Karloff was an interesting character.  Born in 1887, he was 44 years old when he first starred as the Frankenstein monster in the original Frankenstein movie.  Contrary to the character he became most famous for, Karloff was actually an articulate English gentleman.  He was also not overly large—about 5’11” and well under 200 lbs.  He wore enormous lifts and a back-brace-mounted padded suit that made him look much larger than he was.  Contrast this with Fred Gwynne, TV’s Herman Munster—a Karloff caricature—who was 6’5” (and who also wore large lifts and a padded suit).  Check out the monster’s (or the Munster’s) shoes sometime.  You’ll see the soles go at least 5”.  Gwynne once remarked that he lost 10 pounds in one day due to the heat trapped against his body by the suit.  Karloff had serious back trouble as a result of the Frankenstein contraption he was forced to wear (he had three major back surgeries) and was confined to a wheelchair late in life.

 

I mentioned that The Beach Boys covered the song.  Here’s a cover from a concert in London in 1969.  “Boris” Love does a great job with the lead vocals, but, ironically, the backing vocals are a bit lacking.  I’m thinking that’s probably due to faulty recording (surely!).  It’s The Beach Boys, for cryin’ out loud.

 

Click on the links above and enjoy the song.  As with nearly all the songs I link on this blog, you’ll be directed to NapsterLinks, at which you can set up a free account to hear any song on the blog.  If you already have an account, sign in, and the tune you clicked will start playing.

 

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NOTE:  IF ANYONE HAS ACCESS TO THE BORIS KARLOFF COVER OF "MONSTER MASH" FROM SHINDIG! (THE SHOW WAS BROADCAST IN 1965; KARLOFF WAS THE GUEST HOST), I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR IT FOR YEARS.  I’LL PAY GOOD MONEY FOR IT IF YOU HAVE IT.

 

Counting today, there are sixteen days left between now and Halloween, so I’ll hijack the “song for the day” posts for Halloween- and horror-related songs for the rest of the month.  My criteria for selecting songs:

 

1. No TV show theme songs (e.g., “The Addams Family theme song”)
2. No goofy novelty songs (e.g., “Purple People Eater”)
3. No instrumentals  (e.g., Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein”)
4. Prefer songs that I’d like regardless of the season
5. Avoid party-collections and no-name covers
6. Choices ought to have spooky lyrics, music, or both

 

I haven’t ranked any of these, but the first song that comes to many people’s minds when they think of Halloween is Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”  The coolest part of this song is the voice over “rap” by character actor Vincent Price.  I used to watch Vincent when I was a kid and absolutely loved his campy little horror shows.  Apparently Michael Jackson did too.  Price’s lines were written by Rod Templeton in the cab on the way to the recording studio.  He recorded them in just two takes.  The fourteen-minute long “Thriller” video helped the song considerably and explored Michael’s lifelong fascination with scary “B” movies, monsters, and the Saturday matinee horror flick genre.  This was in the days before Michael was too terribly weird.  I remember seeing the foldout of the Thriller album at Wal-mart right after it released and thinking to myself, “Well that’s a pretty attractive black girl.  Who is that?” before realizing it was Michael.  Yeah, he was looking pretty effeminate even in those days with the Jheri curl, the little white suit, and that come hither look on his face.  But he was a long ways from grotesque or absurd, and he didn’t yet appear to be trying to transform himself into Sela Ward.  That all came later.  And to answer those who are aghast that I’d include one of his songs on this list:  I don’t know whether he molested kids or not, but I’d just as soon leave that to the courts and focus on his music for the time being.

 

Back to the song.  Unless you weren’t born yet or were living in a cave, you know that Thriller took over the airwaves in the 80s and became the biggest selling album in history.  Sales estimates range from 40-some million to well over 60 million.  A good part of the reason for that was the title track.  The time was just right for Michael and his music.  Unfortunately for Michael, that time passed pretty quickly and he followed it up with some fairly Bad music.

 

You've probably heard about the little league coach who paid one of his players to bean a teammate who was mildly autistic so that he couldn't play in the game they were about to start.  Evidently, the kid wasn't a very good player, and the coach simply wanted him out of the game.  He felt forced to play him because of his disability, so he came up with a fairly despicable way to keep the kid from playing.  That's a pretty reprehensible thing, but I think even more reprehensible is the sentence the guy got today.  Today, he was sentenced to one-to-six years in prison.  Yes, prison.  For paying a kid $25 to hit another kid with a baseball (the boy wasn't seriously injured).  He deserves a harsh punishment, no doubt, but he doesn't deserve to become Big Black Al's new lady friend and salad tossing buddy.  He has probably lost his job, his life has been turned upside-down by this, and he should probably do some jail time.  But not a year.  And certainly not in prison.  This is a fine example of political correctness run amok.  Yes, we all feel for the autistic boy.  Of course we do.  But we can't let that make us over-punish people who wrong him simply because he's disabled.  The punishment should fit the crime.  I feel for the kid, but I also feel for the guy whose minor lapse in judgment will now take him away from his family for at least a year and probably forever alter the course of his life.  How about just an apology to the kid and his parents, a mea culpa in front of the whole team, perhaps a ban on coaching for awhile, and maybe a bit of jail time and/or community service?  Maybe a fine, too.  Maybe some "sensitivity training" just to make the do-gooders happy.  But prison?  Please!  Where's the common sense here?  Is this a good use of taxpayer money?  Will this help the kid in any tangible way?  It's a freaking outrage if you ask me.

Today's song is "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band from their album Million Mile Reflections (1979).  It's a rockin' little country song that features some of the best fiddle playing in any song ever and that has certainly stood the test of time.  It's an interesting twist on the Faustian bargain morality tale, with the Devil himself taking Mephistopheles' place in this Americanized version.

 

When this song was originally released in the 70s, the tamer obscenity standards of the day required the lyrics to be changed for radio play, hence "I told you once, you son of a bitch" became "I told you once, you son of a gun."  Over time, this sanitized version supplanted the original and became the one most people are familiar with.  My, how things have changed.  Nowadays, you can tune into stations 24x7 that play songs with "bitch" repeated every other word.  I guess some would call that progress, but I miss the days of being able to turn on the radio in the car without having to cover my kids' ears.  One of them has taken up listening to contemporary country music (egads!), and, while much of today's country makes me want to toss my cookies, at least it isn't the pure, unadulterated filth of most rap.  I know choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil, but the kids are going to listen to something whether I like it or not, and they don't dig my music anymore.  I guess I'll take the trite, vacuous and pathetically maudlin cotton candy of today's country over the execrable muck that passes for rap these days, but it's a tough call sometimes.

 

Anyway, give Charlie a listen.  If you've got a pulse at all, this one will get your foot tappin'.

Today's anagram is "Old West Action."  Before you tell me there are multiple correct answers--I beg to differ:  there's only one--the one I'm looking for :-)

 

Hint:  You've seen him in this often.

 

Solve it and post your answer back here, and you get the satisfaction of having beaten the hordes that subscribe to this blog and all the accolades that come with that :-) 

 

P.S.  It's permissible to search the web on this one, so you can steal someone else's solution, spend nine hours doing even that, then claim it only took you five minutes (and that you "work alone" :-D ), and I won't tell anyone :-)

They're moving the cross from the World Trade Center site today to a nearby church.  Those who know me personally might be surprised to learn that this saddens me a bit, but I actually had no problem with the cross at the WTC site.  First, it was found there (World Trade 6 was based on steel-beam construction).  Second, no government money was spent on it, so it would be hard to say it infringes much on the separation of church and state.  Third, the Jewish folks who had relatives die in the attacks, as well as those working and living in the area, seemed to have no problem with it.  For me (and I think for them), that cross is more a symbol of cultural unity than of any particular religious belief.  It transcends creed, ethnicity, race, and religion.  It's about America, and the common bonds that unite us all.

 

Below are some photos I took of the cross the last time I was in New York.  The sight of the lone construction worker and the cross moved me greatly.  Perhaps we don't have a lot in common from a religious standpoint, but we were all united by this horrible tragedy in ways we never imagined.  I could not look on without a certain amount of reverence.