Songs That Actually Terrify Me For Halloween

Halloween is almost upon us and I absolutely love it. From the horror movies at the theater to slutty nurse costumes to bobbing for apples (the forerunner of the choking game?), as humans, it feels like we need to embrace our dark nature sometimes. And nobody does destruction like humans do destruction. We're awesome at being awesomely bad to each other, it's built in. For all the wonderful things that we can do, we're equally matched by the horrible. At Christmas, we celebrate our generosity and at Halloween we celebrate our ferocity. We mock our fears (dressing children up as tiny monsters!), weigh our mortality (ghost stories!), and (in Wisconsin at least) party like November 1st is the end of the world. We can rationalize the different reasons we celebrate the day, but let's face it, most of the time we do stuff because it's #1, everyone else is doing it, #2, it's tradition, or #3, we're too busy to consciously worry about what's going on around us, so as long as it doesn't hurt, let's do it.

I've thought about Halloween for you, though, and I've decided it owns. There's some songs that evoke a fear reaction in me so I can only listen to them every once in awhile. (There's only been one picture that's ever done that to me, which you can see right here.)

"Tomorrow, Wendy" by Concrete Blonde

Tragic and poetic and a reminder of mortality that makes me want to cry and flee at the same time.

"Only God says jump,

So I set the time,
'Cause if he ever saw her,
It was through these eyes of mine.
And if he ever suffered it was me who did his crying."

"Dead Skin Mask" by Slayer

When you want to find the right notes on the guitar to elicit a fear response, Slayer is your go-to band. And the spoken part with the child and Ed Gein is obvious, but it works.

Superheroes from Rocky Horror

The piano always gets me here for some reason. I love the part, but I can only handle it for a few seconds.

Dexter - Closing Theme

I turn the show off or hit mute before the end theme plays.

I'd love to hear what other songs people are actually scared of. Not just songs about scary themes, but songs they have a hard time listening to because they sound terrifying. Email me and I'll postthem too. Have a great Halloween! We'll be at The Annex in Madison to celebrate (with one of the guys from GWAR!)