Our favourite spooky songs for your Halloween playlist

You’ve Monster Mashed.

You’ve Time Warped.

But now you’re out of graveyard smashes, no one wants to do the time warp again, and if you don’t act quickly someone’s going to put on Christmas music.

We’ve got you covered. Here’s some deep cuts for your Halloween playlist.

Lefty Frizzell: Long Black Veil (1959)

Rudolph Valentino died in the summer of 1926.

One of Hollywood’s most beloved and controversial romantic idols, Valentino’s death inspired worldwide grief, hysteria and even a riot. In the years that followed the world moved on and movies moved into colour. But one mourner stayed in black.

For 28 years, a mysterious Lady in Black made an annual pilgrimage to Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery where she laid red roses on Valentino’s grave.

The Lady in Black later explained she wore black because it was slimming. However, for the songwriters Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin, the notion of a woman who wouldn’t or couldn’t cast off the nighted colour – combined with a contemporary account of an unsolved murder – created a classic.

With a voice that sounds like a high wind rolling through a lonely marsh, country crooner Lefty Frizzell turns the sad song into a haunting tale about a condemned man and the woman who mourns him.

“I spoke not a word, though it meant my life. For I’d been in the arms of my best friend’s wife.”

The song was released in 1959, but I find that hard to believe. The Long Black Veil was never new and it’ll never get old.

Unto Others: Momma Likes the Door Closed (2024)

Don’t try to lift this until you’re warmed up. It’s way too heavy.

Equal parts of thrash and goth, this three-minute piece of throth metal tells the story of a young person who fears his mother might be practising the darkest of arts.

After two verses of rising tension, the tempo briefly slows as we hear the voice of what I assume is the reassuring older brother.

“What dude? That’s ridiculous. Your mom is not a servant of the devil,” he says. “It’ll be fine, dude.”

But what if it’s not fine? What then, dude???

Sugar Pie DeSanto: Witch for a Night (1966)

“I’m gonna be a party popping, show stopping, wig flopping, witch for a night!”

Scientists are still searching for a compelling reason to explain why Sugar Pie DeSanto wasn’t a bigger star.

This rousing R&B shouter is about the sheer joy of escaping everything on Halloween night.

Rent may be overdue, interest rates may be rising, but what does a witch care?

The Spring Heeled Jacks Original Swinging Jass Band: The Cremation of Sam McGee (2018)

Despite his name, it’s possible Robert W. Service wasn’t cut out for customer service

A poet and a traveller, Service was working for a bank based in Victoria B.C. when he was dispatched to Whitehorse.

As historian Pierre Berton points out, Service was moved by the Yukon’s mythic quality and “the mystique of the northern lights,” when he wrote The Cremation of Sam McGee.

However, he also may have been moved by something else: a bank customer he dealt with named Sam McGee.

The poem is solid and surreal, horrific and humorous, and seemingly impossible to turn into a tune.

The Spring Heeled Jacks don’t exactly try. Instead, they create a soundscape adaptation that begins with howling wind and crunching snow. Then you’re transported into the classic poem about the “strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.”

The story isn’t exactly spoken but it’s not quite sung either. It’s the sound of someone with frost in his throat and fire in his soul.

“He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell, Though he’d often say in his homely way that ‘he’d sooner live in hell.’”

October Rising: Homecoming Night (2011)

It feels like a Tales from the Crypt comic book set to 1950s doo-wop (with some aggressive punk rock guitar tossed in.)

In this story, the two high school lovers were tragically killed by a prank gone wrong. One year later, the young lovers emerge from their watery grave and head for the Homecoming Night dance they missed the last autumn . . . and for the pranksters.

“Now the band falls silent and will never play again, as death shambles into the high school gym.”

Larry and the Blue Notes: Night of the Sadist (1965)

It’s the urban legend about a maniac roving lover’s lane, as told by a Texas garage band.

“We went parking and the night was just right. When someone grabbed me and I knew I was in a fight.”

Scala and Kolacny Brothers: In the Air Tonight (2016)

In the days before everyone had a debunking machine in their pocket, an urban legend attached itself to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.”

A person was drowning and some cold-blooded bystander just stuck his hands in his pockets instead of jumping in the water to help. Collins, so the story goes, witnessed the whole thing. Eventually, he sang the song to the bystander at one of his concerts, making “In the Air Tonight” the first guilt trip to peak at No. 19 on the Hot 100.

(People telling the story never seemed to explain why Collins didn’t jump in to save the person himself, unless he was too busy getting that reverb drum sound just right.)

It was a creepy story but the song never really felt scary. After all, this was the guy who did the Tarzan musical. However, that all changed when a Belgian women’s choir got hold of the song.

This rendition, featuring only piano and those haunting voices, inspires a terror that feels like a guilt trip into eternity.

“If you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand. I’ve seen your face before, my friend, but I don’t know if you know who I am.”

Bill Buchanan: Beware (1963)

“If you don’t believe in vampires . . . turn up the radio.”

Imagine Bela Lugosi as a mid-1960s pop star and you’re pretty close. It’s a Monster Mash-ish mashup that combines horror with a dash of Motown.

Lucifer: Slow Dance in a Crypt (2023)

Sometimes, when a relationship ends, folks need a little time before they get out there and start dating again. However, if the last relationship was a love so vast the boundaries between life and death seem like pencil marks in the desert by comparison . . . well, then you’ve got this song.

A horror ballad that feels too dark for rock and too romantic for metal, singer Johanna Sadonis takes us to the graveyard while giving us an irresistible chorus backed by melodic guitar work.

“Come lay your head on my shoulder
Taste the salty tears that I weep
Your touch has grown so much colder . . .”

How much more gothic could this song be? None. None more gothic.

Bo Diddley: Who Do You Love? (1956)

You’ve heard it – but have you really listened?

He’s got a brand new house on the roadside, made from rattlesnake hide, not to mention the chimney made out of a human skull.

One of rock n’ roll’s most enduring and influential guitar players, Bo Diddley also managed to inject a bit of voodoo into what was ostensibly a love song.

Alice Cooper: Can’t Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me (2001)

You could probably put all of Alice Cooper on the list. He’s recorded scarier songs (“The Ballad of Dwight Frye” is an unnerving tribute to the guy who played Renfield in the Universal Dracula movie.)

But Cooper was never quite so frightening and so funny as on this track. He even rhymes “booze” with “big ol’ floppy shoes.”

Nobody loves a clown at midnight, particularly if he brought his appetite.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: Whistling Past the Graveyard (1978)

Alice Cooper is often credited with bringing theatricality to rock n’ roll. This despite the fact that Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was leaping out of a coffin and holding conversations with a smoking skull when Cooper was in grade school.

Hawkins takes this gem of a Tom Waits song and – with the help of some beautiful horns – makes it his own.

He shouts, he snarls, and somehow he’s still as smooth as a vampire on a segway.

“Gonna tear off a rainbow and wear it for a tie. I never told the truth so how in the hell could I tell a lie?”

MGMT: Little Dark Age (2017)

“I grieve in stereo . . .”

A lovely thing about goths is that they never seem surprised to run into misfortune.

Less a story song than a synth-pop sojourn into overwhelming feelings of anxiety and trepidation. It’s not just that things are bad, but that bad things are inevitable.

However, there is a note of hope amid the post-apocalyptic imagery. The dark age is a little one.

Lonnie Johnson: Blue Ghost Blues (1928)

The doorknob rattles. A ghost softly whispers.

Lonnie Johnson hums and sings while painting a picture of black cats, blue ghosts, and being trapped.

A blues and jazz virtuoso, Johnson had been one of Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5. On this one, however, he’s as cold as whatever’s creeping around his house.

Deadbolt: Tell Me Where He Lies (2005)

Warning: profane lyrics

These guys don’t sing. They don’t try to, either.

Instead, they marry surf rock riffs with spoken word stories of murder, curses, and revenge.

This particular story concerns a crime lord trying to find a certain unmarked grave before midnight. If crime boss and his goons fail, well, there could be consequences.

Imelda May: Hellfire Club (2014)

It’s rockabilly, it’s folk, and it’s a campfire story all rolled into one.

In this tune, May tells the story of a poker game with high stakes and a devilish gambler.

“He stayed and played one hell of a game.”

Cab Calloway: The Ghost of Smoky Joe (1939)

There wasn’t much Cab Calloway couldn’t do.

Besides being an amazing singer, musician, dancer and bandleader, he was a sensational lyricist.

He rhymes “off in” with “coffin” and he talks about a date on his estate in Hades.

It’s a rare Halloween song that’ll make you do the Charleston.

“You can tell me I’m not wanted but the joint will still be haunted.”

Rene Marie: I’d Rather Be Burned as a Witch (2013)

This love letter to Eartha Kitt is speedy, sultry, and just a little scary.

Backed by an incredible jazz combo, Rene Marie is everywhere you need her to be and no place you’d expect. Her voice swings from high to husky and from spoken word to scat as she describes her eyes that invite you, lips that delight you, and those teeth that just might bite you.

“I’d rather be burned as a witch than never to burn at all,” she croons.

“Got a match?”

The Hand of Doom: They Who’ll Creep at Night (1979)

So heavy, so forgotten.

If you go to the Wikipedia page for “Hand of Doom” you’ll find a Black Sabbath song, a Black Sabbath tribute band, and a Dungeons & Dragons adventure but not a single trace of this wonderfully gothic metal band.

They only released one album with a terrible title (Poisonoise). But that album included this incredible song. It’s got a heavy riff, a solid guitar solo and the nerve to ask the most relevant question: “Have you seen them, creeping in the night?”

Kate Bush: Hammer Horror (1978)

She’s so much more than running hills and making deals.

It sounds like a tribute to Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and the movie studio that had the moxie to reinvent Dracula, Frankestein and the Wolf Man. But if you go over the lyrics, it seems to be the story of an actor who got the role of a lifetime because the original star was killed.

It’s a horror many of us can relate to: impostor syndrome.

“They’ve got stars for the gallant hearts/ I’m the replacement for your part.”

Ghost: Call Me Little Sunshine (2022)

A heavy metal band that’s equal parts occult and Abba.

This tune could be mistaken for a love song until you realize just who’s calling.

“You can always reach me. . . . All you gotta do is call me. . . Mephistopholes.”

The Pierces: Secret (2007)

It sounds like a record you’d find in a forbidden attic.

Beautiful voices sing of a secret and an unforgivable betrayal. There may be a scarier song but I’ve never heard it.

“Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”