By Zach Hagadone and Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff
Alongside its jollier cousin in December, Halloween is as much a feeling as a specific date on the calendar. Critical to that feeling, of course, is the musical accompaniment. For the second year in a row, we’ll present a handful of suggested entries for your Halloween playlist each week in October.
She Past Away
Do we know what the singers of Turkish dark-wave, ’80s revival, post-punk electronic band She Past Away are saying? Not really. From what we’ve translated, it’s a lot of stuff about screaming into “the void” and repeating such comforting sentences as “bugs are gnawing.” That hardly matters, though, because the ambient guitars, abundance of synthesizers and monotone vocalizations tell the band’s dark stories even without words. Songs like “Ruh,” “Bozbulanik” and “Ritüel” are perfect background or dance music for a halloween party or for zoning out while washing dishes (in October). Listen on shepastaway.com.
Sea shanties
It might seem random to consider sea shanties “Halloween-y,” but the more you listen and learn, the more it makes perfect sense. The genre is generally identified within traditional folk and maritime work songs from the late-18th to mid-19th centuries — the heyday of the gothic milieu that originated modern-day horror. It’s also notable that shanties are most commonly associated with Anglo-Celtic seadogs, whose ancestors conjured up Samhain, which became Halloween and they then introduced to North America after dangerous ocean crossings. Beyond all that, the songs themselves are often full of loneliness, despair, violence, fear and ominous supernatural themes. Some notables are “Haul Away Joe” (The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem), “Lowlands Away” (Sandy Bell’s Ceilidh) and “The Cruel Ship’s Captain” (Dave Van Ronk). Find loads of shanty playlists on YouTube and other streamers.
Old-school blues
Among the most valuable cultural and artistic contributions ever made in the United States is the collective output of early-20th century blues musicians — primarily Black Americans and many, though not all, from the South. From “Hell Hound on My Trail,” by Robert Johnson, to “Devil Got My Woman,” by Skip James, “Witching Hour Blues” (Tampa Red) and “Ghost Creepin’ Blues” (Mae Smith), there’s an enormous catalog of songs full of haunting imagery evoking spiritual and dangers born of real-life horrors. There’s a good reason that the 2025 horror film Sinners was set in early-1930s Mississippi, involving bootleggers and blues musicians fighting for their very souls — and with an Oscar-winning soundtrack to match. If you’re lucky enough to find it, check out The Goin’ Mad Blues, a 10-disc collection of hundreds of traditional blues tunes. Otherwise, search around on YouTube.
Berzilla Wallin
What little recordings remain of Appalachian folk singer Berzilla Wallin are, rightfully, regarded as historic artifacts and significant to the region’s musical history, which manifested from isolated folk traditions and Scots-Irish settlers. That’s why you’ll most often find her on albums like Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian Folkways, which contains one of the best — and perhaps the most harrowing — renditions of “Conversation with Death (Oh Death).” Born in 1892 and only recorded in the ’60s, Wallin, her husband and their 12 children together kept the tradition of ballad singing alive in their community for decades. The echoes of her 70-year-old voice are both a haunting remnant of the past and a beautiful memento mori. Listen on Spotify.
Jackson C. Frank
We wouldn’t be surprised if you’re unfamiliar with Jackson C. Frank, but his life was itself a sort of “tune of terror.” Making a very long story short — though you should read his full Wikipedia entry — Frank had an “interesting” go of it. Grievously wounded in an elementary school boiler explosion in Buffalo, N.Y., he suffered physical and later severe mental problems, but his musical career started out pretty promising, with his lone studio album in 1965 produced by Paul Simon, who called him an influence. With a huge insurance payout in his pocket, he moved to England, but deteriorating mental health led to him bouncing in and out of institutions until he died at the age of 56 in the U.S. Meanwhile he was known to run nude in the streets and was blinded in one eye by a random pellet gun shooting. Still, his scant oeuvre is worth discovering — particularly “Halloween Is Black as Night,” from the album Fixin’ to Die, whose title track also deserves mention. Find it on YouTube.
