HALLOWEEN

I Don’t Want To Go Down To The Basement

A Halloween playlist

I’ve compiled a short Halloween playlist for your enjoyment — well, my enjoyment, really, but I’m willing to share.

It isn’t a complete Halloween playlist, by any means. It’s simply a dozen songs that I like that have some connection to the supernatural. And in the worst mix tape fashion, I have included multiple tracks from the same band. Don’t you hate a sampler with more than one song from the same band? Yeah, me too, but life happens…

(I will not pop a video in between each song, since the platform doesn’t handle it that well, at least for me. The Spotify playlist is at the bottom of the article)

Bad Moon Rising — Creedence Clearwater Revival

You can’t have a playlist of Halloween songs without CCR’s Bad Moon Rising. It’s against the rules. Seriously. Read them here, if you don’t believe me. The greatest werewolf movie ever immortalised the song, and it has to be on my Halloween playlist.

I Don’t Want To Go Down to the Basement — Ramones

It’s the Ramones. They have to be on the playlist, and they have a few beauties to pick from, but I choose this one because the basement is always a scary place.

Astro Zombies — The Misfits

With just a touch of my burning hand

To me, that’s just an amazing lyric. It evokes so many senses, and I can so easily visualise what they’re talking about. It really is too bad that The Misfits all went to shit after Danzig left, but I’m not a fan of his post-Misfits work either. But they left us some amazing work drawn from their fevered New Jersey toxic minds.

Run Through The Jungle — The Gun Club

I know it’s a CCR tune, but The Gun Club makes it even spookier, with Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s haunting vocals, and Ward Dotson’s eerie guitar. If you don’t know The Gun Club and you like twisted roots rock, get to know them. Also, get to know Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, especially Behind the Magnolia Curtain. You won’t go wrong.

The Witch — The Fuzztones

The Fuzztones were/are the greatest garage revival band of the 80s in my opinion, anyway. Others may have been slicker, more musical, more together, more something or other, but The Fuzztones always felt the most dangerous. The realest of the real, and the hippest of the hip. Lysergic Emanations remains one of my favourite albums.

Season of the Witch — Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

A great song, but I refuse to include that Mellow Yellow dude, so I looked for some covers. I found a few interesting ones, but it came down to the UK Subs or Joan Jett.

Now, I love the Subs. They were the first real English punk band I saw, with the Anti-Nowhere League opening at the Cedar Lounge in London, Ontario. And their version of Season of the Witch rocks, but it isn’t classic Subs. Warhead, from the Crash Course (Live) album, is classic UK Subs. Go listen to it, when you get the chance.

So, instead of the UK Subs, I picked Joan Jett and the Blackheart’s version, and it’s a grand version. Far better than Mellow Yellow’s. And definitely better than Hole’s…

Bela Lugosi's Dead — Bauhaus

I still kick myself for missing the Bahaus playing in London, Ontario at the Polish Combatant’s Hall in 1980, but the saving grace was since I lived an hour outside of the city, I didn’t find out until the week after they played.

Bela Lugosi, spooky music, goths — all yell Halloween to me, so this track had to be added.

Every Day Is Halloween — Ministry

The title has the word Halloween in it. It's the unofficial anthem of 1980s goths everywhere. It’s Ministry. How could it not be on the playlist?

Pet Sematary — Ramones

The second round of Ramones. Every playlist everywhere could simply only contain Ramones’ songs, and the world would be a better place. A much better place. But, this song is especially important for Halloween, since it’s the theme song from the master of horror, Stephen King — Pet Sematary. The first one, not the shitty one.

And I lied, here’s the video.

Vampira — Misfits

Mistress to the horror kid Cemetery of the white love ghoul, well Take off your shabby dress Come and lay beside me

Another Misfits song, which is A-OK since their songs were the deranged horror-punk dreams all young boys had, and Vampira was the epitome of THE sexy vampire, long before Hollywood made them sparkle. Fuck Hollywood.

Green Lady — UIC

My guess is that you’ve never heard of the band U.I.C. since they’re a Canadian punk garage rock band from my hometown that never quite made it big. Close, but no cigar, as they say. But their song Green Lady rocks, and I wrote a short story called Up By The Devil’s Elbow, which is based on the same local legend as the song.

The Playlist

Paul Mansfield is a writer, a photographer, a guitar player, a philosopher — some he does well, some not so well, but he still tries them all. You can follow him on Twitter @pmansfield.

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Here is another of his stories on music.