Live Wire and Ice Radio Present: A “Chiller” Halloween Playlist

By Christopher DiBella, Emily Hughes and the ICE Radio Staff.

Editor Note: If you have any issues playing the videos on the page, try clicking on the title of the video to open it in a new window. Record labels want money. We can’t stop them.

Halloween. It is a day that many of us have been eagerly showing anticipation for with Hocus Pocus memes since the beginning of the year. The holiday celebrating all things spooky-scary, songs that give off Halloween-y vibes are just as important because, like Christmas songs, they really get us into the Halloween spirit. In a collaboration between Live Wire and ICE Radio, we have come together and put together a list of songs we believe will help put a frighteningly exciting celebratory mode into Halloween festivities.

Again, we want to thank ICE Radio for the collaboration on this playlist, and we hope it is enjoyable!

To begin, let us start with a classic rocker with a penchant for wearing eyeliner, snakes, and straitjackets…

• Alice Cooper – He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)

Provided by ICE Radio

• Arthur Brown – I Put A Spell on You

Provided by Christopher DiBella, Live Wire Managing Editor

There are many covers of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins proto-rock and roll original I Put a Spell on You, including covers by such artists as Nina Simone, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Marilyn Manson, The Animals and Jeff Beck.

However, my personal favorite will always be Arthur Brown’s infamous, Haunting cover. There is just no artist like Arthur Brown, even now.

 

• Primus – The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Provided by ICE Radio

A remake of the classic by The Charlie Daniels band, Primus puts their own twist on the tale of a boy, a devil, and a fiddle showdown with a soul at stake.

• Rob Zombie – Dragula

Provided by ICE Radio

A classic metal song from the late 1990s, master lyricist Rob Zombie captures the supernatural feel of Halloween through chugging guitars and crashing cymbals.

Also, the music video is amazing in Rob Zombie tradition. How much more Halloween can it get from there?

• Skinny Puppy – Dig It

Provided by Emily Hughes 

One cannot deny there is a Nine Inch Nails feel to this song, but the vocalist’s gritty voice and the overall atmosphere the song provides makes this nothing short of a Halloween song.

• Santana – Black Magic Woman

Provided by ICE Radio

This legendary song from an even more legendary Spanish artist puts a spell on even the most unwilling believer of spirits and magic.

• The Misfits – In the Doorway

Provided by Christopher DiBella – Live Wire managing editor

A less than frequently discussed song in The Misfits Discography, In The Doorway  still deserves discussion.

The closing track to the  The Misfits long awaited Static Age, In the Doorway is quite possibly the single creepiest and most mysterious The Misfits track, and is certainly deserving of a spot on this list.

• Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – The Night Creeper

Provided by Christopher DiBella – Live Wire managing editor

The title track to 2017’s The Night Creeper is by far the spookiest track on the 2017 concept album about a city struck by fear, violence, drugs, sex and the hunt for a killer.

The song deals with the police’s deliberate confusion and pinning all of the random murders into one imaginary killer, who the press quickly takes to the streets to spread paranoia and fear.
The track ends with ominous spine tingling lyric:

“Lock up your windows and bolt up your doors, 

Heed all the warnings he’s coming for more… 

Innocent eyes are not what they seem.  

Strangers are dangerous, they’ll hide all your screams!
Read all the papers and spread all the news,
The Night Creeper’s crawling and COMING FOR YOU!
They’ll never find him and we’ll never know
Who’ll be next to go…?”

 

• Stevie Wonder – Superstition

Provided by ICE Radio

If you really want a song that takes time back to when Motown keyboards and horn sections were the coolest-sounding entities on earth, this song is the right choice! This is also the perfect song for awkwardly dancing around the small living room space with friends (or with a broom, a cat, a lamp stand…you get the idea.)

• Talking Heads – Psycho Killer

Provided by ICE Radio

Before the days of “Burning Down the House,” Talking Heads released a song full of unpronounceable French words and, oh yeah, the guy is a “real live wire.” If we were smart, we would try to run away as fast as possible.

Patrick Bateman approves.

• The Ramones – Pet Sematary

Provided by ICE Radio

Ramones. Goblins. Warlords. Pet cemeteries. Enough said.

• Godsmack – Voodoo

Provided by Emily Hughes – Live Wire editor-in-chief

Surrounded by mystical guitar sounds and a drum line that screams voodoo ritual, Godsmack brings a really strange and trippy slow dance to the Halloween playlist.

Before we go into our last pick for the Halloween playlist, we want to share a poem found on the sleeve of the next band we will mention, which fits perfectly with the song.

• Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath

Provided by Christopher DiBella – Live Wire managing editor

A little known fact about the Black Sabbath’s first album is there was originally a poem included in the gatefold sleeve of the album (inside an inverted cross) which, to this day, nobody knows the author of the poem, nor the identity of the woman on the album’s ominous cover. No member of Black Sabbath contributed to the album cover or the inside gatefold.  The poem has an interesting effect when combined with the beginning of the first track of the album. Read the poem below, and right as the poem is about to end, start the track.

“Still falls the rain, the veils of darkness shroud the blackened trees, which contorted by some unseen violence, shed their tired leaves, and bend their boughs towards a grey earth of severed bird wings. among the grasses, poppies bleed before a gesticulating death, and young rabbits, born dead in traps, stand motionless, as though guarding the silence that surrounds and threatens to engulf all those that would listen. Mute birds, tired of repeating yesterdays terrors, huddle together in the recesses of dark corners, heads turned from the dead, black swan that floats upturned in a small pool in the hollow. there emerges from this pool a faint sensual mist, that traces its way upwards to caress the chipped feet of the headless martyr’s statue, whose only achievement was to die to soon, and who couldn’t wait to lose. the cataract of darkness form fully, the long black night begins, yet still, by the lake a young girl waits, unseeing she believes herself unseen, she smiles, faintly at the distant tolling bell, and the still falling rain.”

Image credit: http://liaverse.blogspot.com/

Happy Halloween.