Halloween Songs

Summary

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Halloween Songs

Date: October 28, 2025
Host: NPR
Guests: Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton, Hazel Sills

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Overview

In this spirited episode, the Pop Culture Happy Hour team (via a crossover with NPR’s All Songs Considered) explores the ever-evolving canon of Halloween music. Steering away from obvious novelty tracks like "Monster Mash" and "Thriller," the hosts aim to broaden the playlist for spooky season. They break the conversation into categories—truly terrifying songs, childhood nostalgia, promising new releases, and Mount Rushmore-worthy Halloween classics. Expect lively camaraderie, personal memories, and several passionate cases for music that should define Halloween.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Creating a New Halloween Music Canon

• Stephen Thompson’s Pitch (01:16): Stephen proposes expanding the familiar Halloween playlist beyond the usual suspects. He notes how certain songs and albums spike on the Billboard charts every October and suggests it’s time for a more inventive, atmospherically "true" canon.

  “Let’s agree on a more expansive Halloween music canon, what songs do we want to see pop up around spooky season that are true to the season but also are not just novelty songs... but like actually spooky songs that rule.” — Stephen Thompson (01:16)

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Category 1: Songs That Are Truly Terrifying

• "Killer" by Phoebe Bridgers

  • Chosen by Stephen. Noted for its gloomy, autumnal vibe and intimate yet unnerving narrative of potential violence.

    “It has this intimacy, but it's like a whisper about murder.” — Stephen Thompson (03:03)

  • The group discusses the disturbing power of reflecting on dark internal thoughts.

    “Sometimes the most terrifying thing in the world is your own thoughts.” — Robin Hilton (03:39)

• "If I Had A Heart" by Fever Ray

  • Picked by Hazel. Praised for its chilling lyricism, foreboding instrumentation, and a sense of monstrous inhumanity.

    “It's this kind of, almost like creature is singing about how much they want more and more. And it's like... Well, more of what?” — Hazel Sills (04:50)

  • Robin comments on the haunting visual and thematic identity of Fever Ray.

    “Everything Fever Ray does is terrifying to me. The videos, too.” — Robin Hilton (05:25)

  • The trio riffs on the commercialization of Halloween.

    “Halloween's gotten too commercial, man. It's just too commercial.” — Stephen Thompson (06:33)

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Category 2: Nostalgic (Childhood) Ghosts

• "Goosebumps" TV Show Theme

  • Hazel’s pick conjures 90s childhood memories and childhood frights.

    “This song just... It lives so large in my brain.” — Hazel Sills (07:07) “It was like the Twilight Zone for being a child in the 90s.” (08:04)

• "Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of a Haunted House" (1964 Disneyland Records)

  • Robin shares this iconic sound effects album, which ZM_ was omnipresent in 70s and 80s Halloween culture.

    “For people of a certain age, this was inescapable. It was a Halloween tradition. Any haunted house you went to, it was playing.” — Robin Hilton (09:25) “I feel inspired, honestly, to just start playing this in my home at all times.” — Hazel Sills (10:23)

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Category 3: New Additions to the Halloween Canon

• "Horizontes Lejanos" by Oksana Linde

  • Hazel introduces this otherworldly, atmospheric track by the Venezuelan composer, likened to John Carpenter soundtracks.

    “It just feels so ethereal and weird and like twisted. And I feel like you could play this music on the porch when the trick or treaters are coming up...” — Hazel Sills (14:20)

• "Everybody Scream" by Florence + the Machine

  • Stephen spotlights this overtly Halloween-themed, theatrical new single.

    “She gives a committed vocal ... and it's spooky and it's a little silly.” — Stephen Thompson (15:52) “This is clearly a bid for [being] the Mariah Carey of Halloween.” (16:50)

  • Lady Gaga’s "Dead Dance" (directed by Tim Burton) also gets a brief nod for its Halloween credentials.

• "House of Psychotic Women" by Ethel Cain

  • Robin brings forward this minimalist, deeply unsettling track.

    “The music is so unnerving, and she's saying I love you over and over again. So creepy. And all the words are kind of buried, like they're kind of coming up from underground or something.” — Robin Hilton (17:53) “She is just so good at creating these desolate, like, haunted houses of songs.” — Hazel Sills (18:10)

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Category 4: Mount Rushmore of Halloween Songs

• "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" by The Cramps

  • Hazel’s essential: punk rockabilly with a dose of dark camp.

    “It's not Monster Mash. It's not Thriller. It's, like, dialed down enough in that, like, campy vampiric energy that it's cool.” — Hazel Sills (20:12)

• "My Body's a Zombie for You" by Dead Man’s Bones

  • Stephen’s underappreciated gem, partly for Ryan Gosling’s surprising involvement.

    “These two friends, one of whom happened to be Ryan Gosling ... made a bunch of Halloween themed music...” — Stephen Thompson (21:32) “You look at the play count on Spotify and that song has been played like 8 million times.” (22:39)

• "Great Pumpkin Waltz" by Vince Guaraldi

  • Robin’s classic pick from the beloved Peanuts special.

    “Classic. Absolute classic ... no less a classic.” — Robin Hilton (23:17) “I got a rock.” — Robin Hilton (referencing Peanuts, 23:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It used to be about the fear, man.” — Stephen Thompson, satirizing the commercialization of Halloween (06:39)
• “This song just... It lives so large in my brain.” — Hazel Sills, on the Goosebumps theme (07:07)
• "I feel inspired, honestly, to just start playing this in my home at all times." — Hazel Sills, about 'Chilling, Thrilling Sounds' (10:23)
• "This is clearly a bid for [being] the Mariah Carey of Halloween." — Stephen Thompson, on Florence + the Machine (16:50)
• "She is just so good at creating these desolate, like, haunted houses of songs." — Hazel Sills, on Ethel Cain (18:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:16 — Stephen outlines a new Halloween music canon.
• 02:32–06:44 — "Truly terrifying" song choices; Phoebe Bridgers & Fever Ray discussed.
• 06:44–11:01 — Nostalgic picks: Goosebumps theme and the famous Disneyland sound effects album.
• 12:58–18:46 — New Halloween songs introduced: Oksana Linde, Florence + the Machine, Ethel Cain.
• 19:15–24:06 — Mount Rushmore of Halloween music: The Cramps, Dead Man’s Bones, Vince Guaraldi.

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Episode Tone

Cheerful, nostalgic, slightly irreverent, and deeply knowledgeable about both pop culture and music history. The group’s chemistry sparks lively banter, as personal experiences are woven into broader cultural trends.

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Summary Useful for Listeners

This episode is both a primer and a deep dive into the world of Halloween music—perfect for anyone looking to expand their seasonal playlist beyond the expected hits. You'll come away with new recommendations, fun anecdotes, and—if you're a child of the 90s or a Halloween obsessive—plenty of moments to make you nod in recognition. Whether you crave chilling soundscapes or ironic, campy classics, the Pop Culture Happy Hour crew has just the track for you.

Transcript

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[Stephen Thompson]

Halloween is almost here, and you've maybe started hearing those familiar Halloween songs that resurface every year, your Ghostbusters theme, your thriller, your Monster Mash. But beyond those Halloween staples, what's next? I'm Stephen Thompson, and I recently joined my pals on NPR's All Songs Considered to come up with a new canon of songs for spooky Season. Here's host Robin Hilton.

[Robin Hilton]

It's ALL SONGS considered. I'm Robin Hilton. I'm here with NPR music editor Hazel Sills and our correspondent for all things a mile wide and an inch deep. Stephen Thompson.

[Stephen Thompson]

NPR dilettante correspondent, host of.

[Robin Hilton]

New Music Friday, also with Pop Culture Happy Hour. Stephen, the idea for this year's Halloween episode is yours, so maybe you should set this whole thing up for us.

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, it's interesting. You know, one of my beats at NPR is the Billboard charts. And if you look at the Billboard charts in late October into early November, you'll see, like all of a sudden Ray Parker Jr's Greatest hits hits the album chart, Michael Jackson's greatest hits or the album Thriller really pop up. There's sort of a number of kind of Halloween staples that have started to form a Halloween music canon beyond the song Monster Mash by Bobby Boris Pickett. And what I pitched to Robin and what I wanted to discuss with you all is let's agree on on a more expansive Halloween music canon, what songs do we want to see pop up around spooky season that are true to the season but also are not just novelty songs, are not just like Gather rounds, my boys and ghouls, you know, but like actually spooky songs that are that rule.

[Robin Hilton]

So we've got a number of categories we're going to do to sort of winnow down what kind of songs belong in the Halloween canon. I thought we would start with songs that are truly terrifying, not the goofball songs.

[Stephen Thompson]

All right. Well, I'll kick us off. Not a terribly old song, but this song is genuinely spooky. It's also beautiful. It's also just by one of my favorite singers to pop up in the last decade or so. It's the song Killer by Phoebe Bridgers.

[Robin Hilton]

Sometimes I think I'm a killer.

[Hazel Sills]

I scared you, your house. I even scared myself by talking about.

[Robin Hilton]

D on your couch.

[Stephen Thompson]

I think Part of what's creepy about it, first of all, it's. It is a. It is a gloomy song. It isn't. It is a song that feels autumnal. I think a lot of the horror and kind of the horror icons that speak most to me have a certain level of, like. Of humanity to them. This song felt true to that. It felt like it has this intimacy, but it's like a whisper about murder.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah. There's a spooky kind of almost like, normalcy to this song. Like what she's expressing about. Do I have the capacity to do the kinds of things that I'm singing about?

[Robin Hilton]

Sometimes the most terrifying thing in the world is your own thoughts.

[Hazel Sills]

I mean, totally.

[Robin Hilton]

Right.

[Stephen Thompson]

Who are you talking to? Robin.

[Robin Hilton]

But she. And I think specifically the fear of not being in control of your own thoughts and actions. And that's something that she alludes to.

[Stephen Thompson]

Absolutely.

[Robin Hilton]

In the song. So killer. From Phoebe Bridgers. That's from Stranger in the Alps, came out in 2017. We're gonna add that one to the canon. Hazel, what do you wanna add? And this is for the category, songs that are truly terrifying.

[Hazel Sills]

A song that I thought of when you mentioned this category is the song if I Had A Heart by the artist Fever Ray.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is such a good pick. Yeah. So unsettling. I'm just sitting there the whole time. I was. The whole time I was listening to it, I was like, who you gonna call?

[Hazel Sills]

It's creepy. It's just like, you know, costumes and spooky images and ghosts and monsters are just such a big part of the Fever Ray project. And I think aside from the instrumentals of this music, the way it's so foreboding and it almost feels like a Western score. It's like I feel like I'm walking down a dark road. The lyrics are so terrifyingly opaque. It's like, if I had a heart I could love you. And, you know, it's this kind of almost like creature is singing about how much they want more and more. And it's like. Well, more of what?

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, everything Fever Ray does is terrifying to me. The videos, too. And you say some sort of creature. That's the spirit and even the physical form that they inhabit in their videos. Right. They're always monstrous.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is such a good entry in the Halloween canon. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I want to see Fever Ray pop up on the Billboard charts every October. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, I think the thing that's interesting about the Billboard charts and this whole thing becoming a thing right now is that the cynical side of me immediately thought of how labels just want to capitalize on this thing that they're seeing. They start to see, like, wait a minute, if Thriller's popping up on the charts this time of year, maybe we really need to be releasing more Halloween themed music just so we can really capitalize on this. And then I've already taken it as far as, well, Fever Ray will never get the attention that Fever Ray deserves because the oxygen's gonna be sucked up by all the pop stars and the big labels and everything trying to capitalize on this market.

[Stephen Thompson]

Halloween's gotten too commercial, man. It's just too commercial.

[Hazel Sills]

There's too many spirit Halloweens.

[Stephen Thompson]

It used to be about the fear, man.

[Robin Hilton]

All right, we're doing these categories. The next category is ghosts from your childhood. No, nostal.

[Stephen Thompson]

Just.

[Robin Hilton]

Let's just take a nostalgia trip here and talk about the songs, regardless of whether or not they're scary, that really take us back to the magical time of our youth when maybe Halloween resonates the most with us.

[Hazel Sills]

I feel like the music that reminds me the most of my childhood Halloweens or just, you know, spooky times in my childhood, which were a lot of times, is the Goosebumps theme song. The theme song to the TV show Goosebumps should clarify that. I'm a millennial, so I'm a child of the 90s, and this song just. It lives so large in my brain.

[Stephen Thompson]

Hazel, currently running out of the studio in here, actually.

[Hazel Sills]

This song, it really slaps, like, as a piece of music.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

So Goosebumps, that was your jam growing up. This is, like, instantly takes you back to your childhood.

[Hazel Sills]

Instantly takes me back. I watched so much Goosebumps, I read the Goosebumps book series by R.L. stine, and I feel like it was like the Twilight Zone for being a child in the 90s, and it was scary. Some of those episodes were. Even to this day, I'm like, that was kind of a lot for children's television.

[Robin Hilton]

So I know about Goosebumps, but I've never seen it. I mean, I know it's like. I think it had a reboot. I think there was a movie.

[Hazel Sills]

There was a movie. I don't know if I saw the movie.

[Stephen Thompson]

And really, like, epic. Extremely state of the art special effects.

[Hazel Sills]

You know what I. Yes.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Hazel Sills]

Really state of the art. I mean, at least it wasn't all cgi, I can say that.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

But.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, I want to go next because I. I have something that also instantly takes me back to My childhood. And this actually isn't even a song, but it is synonymous with spooky season to me. And there. There are people of a certain generation. I think when they hear this, they'll instantly know what it is. One dark and stormy night, a light appears in the topmost window in the tower of the old house. You decide to investigate and you never return. So this is from 1964.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Okay.

[Robin Hilton]

It's from an album, but it was played all through the 70s and 80s. It's the album played where? Okay, so this is an album from Disneyland Records called Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of a Haunted House. For people of a certain age, this was inescapable. It was a Halloween tradition. Any haunted house you went to, it was playing. Any Halloween party you went to, it was playing. Or just trick or treating, you'd go to someone's house and invariably they'd have this playing on a record player on their front porch. Or you could hear it coming from inside the house.

[Stephen Thompson]

I definitely heard this in passing on several different front porches in Mentor, Ohio, and Iola, Wisconsin.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

So the first half of the record, it's these little stories with that narrator, and every track is a new scenario, you know, but then the second half of the record is just the sound effects. You know, no narration or whatever.

[Hazel Sills]

I feel inspired, honestly, to just start playing this in my home at all times. Like, I actually, I'm like, oh, this would be great ambiance for like dinner parties when people come over.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

Like, was it just brought out for trick or treaters?

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, for the most part. But I had my own copy that I would just put on. I just, I mean, I was the.

[Stephen Thompson]

Same way with a Chipmunks Christmas.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, because, I mean, you know, we. Stephen, we do the Goofy Holiday show every year. That whole thing that we started more than a decade ago, that was my baby that I started because. Just because I love all the sound effects and I love doing all the.

[Stephen Thompson]

I always loved the sound effects record.

[Robin Hilton]

All right, we got to take a quick break here, but we'll have more songs for the new Halloween canon right after this. And you're listening to All Songs Considered from NPR Music.

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[Hazel Sills]

Your new Dell PC with Intel Core Ultra helps you handle a lot when your holiday to DOS get to be a lot. Luckily, the Dell PC helps you get it all done.

[Robin Hilton]

Get [e-mail] holiday it's all songs Considered from NPR Music. I'm Robin Hilton. I'm here with Hazel Sills and Stephen Thompson, and we're talking about songs for a new canon of Halloween music. Well, let's talk about new songs because that's one of the categories. We did nostalgia, we did songs that are truly terrifying. Let's talk about some of the new stuff that's coming that we think belongs in the canon.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, I was thinking about this compilation that was released this year by a artist I wasn't familiar with. Her name is Oksana Lind. She's like a Venezuelan composer and she mostly made stuff like from the late 80s to the mid-90s. And I want to play a song of hers called Horizontes Lejanos.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, very John Carpenter. Like I could, I could hear this during a scene of like the Thing, the movie the Thing, or one of his films. So Oksana Linda is totally new to me too. You know, she, I guess started recording as far back as the 1980s, but didn't put out an album until just a few years ago.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, it's crazy that we don't like, we haven't heard this before because it just feels so ethereal and weird and like twisted. And I feel like you could play this music on the porch when the trick or treaters are coming up if.

[Robin Hilton]

You wanted to, nobody would stop. They would just keep walking.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, there's just such a sense of, like, dread to this song. Kind of like the Fever Guy song that we played earlier, you know, just feeling like I'm being pulled into this other world.

[Robin Hilton]

So that's from an album that just came out this year called Trevisius from Oxana. Linda, Steven, what do you got for something new to add to the canon?

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, I think this song is pretty clearly engineered specifically to be part of the Halloween canon, and I happen to think it does a phenomenal job of it. Florence and the Machine. There's a new album coming out on Halloween, and the first single from it feels so Halloween friendly. It is called Everybody Scream.

[Robin Hilton]

You know, I hadn't thought of it until hearing this song in the context of this conversation we're having, but this song has that borderline goofy, super theatrical kind of melodrama to it that I hadn't quite clocked until hearing it. Like, even the organ sound at the.

[Stephen Thompson]

Beginning, you know, I think the difference is she's committed. She gives a committed vocal, and I think she's not coming in there like, I am here to suck your blood. She's, like, singing the hell out of it and, like, letting the instrumentation do the work of, you know, kind of the organs. And it's spooky and it's a little silly.

[Hazel Sills]

I get the sense that she is creating this themed, you know, fantasy, and she is existing within it as the artist that she already is. Like this song, you know, with the organ, and, you know, it has these kind of, like, Halloween hallmarks, and it's clearly pointed towards the holiday and has a purpose. It doesn't feel that out of line with her catalog or the work that she already makes as an artist.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. I mean, her music's always had drama. Yeah. And been very theatrical and kind of an undercurrent that's a little creepy.

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, and when we're talking about who is the Mariah Carey of Halloween, this is clearly a bid for that. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Lady Gaga has a new song called the Dead Dance, which has a video directed by Tim Burton. And she's like a creepy rag doll, kind of twitchy, jerky, kind of twitching around to this very Halloween coded song.

[Robin Hilton]

So we'll add that into the Halloween canon. Florence and the Machine. Everybody Scream. Brand new song. For the something new category that we're adding to the canon, I'm gonna pick a song by Ethel Cain A song called House of Psychotic Women from the sort of weird one off album that Ethel Cain did at the top of the year called Perverts.

[Stephen Thompson]

I love you.

[Robin Hilton]

I love you I love you.

[Stephen Thompson]

I love you.

[Hazel Sills]

I love you.

[Robin Hilton]

Again, there's that contrast. Like, the music is so unnerving, and she's saying I love you over and over again. So creepy. And all the words are kind of buried, like they're kind of coming up from underground or something.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, Ethel is just such a master. You know, she's so young, but she's such a master already in her career at this very kind of specific strain of American Gothic music in a way that I feel like so few artists make. She is just so good at creating these desolate, like, haunted houses of songs. Like, there's so much going on in there, even though it feels quite minimal. And, yeah, I mean, this is music that truly scares me, actually.

[Robin Hilton]

So the song House of Psychotic Women, with, I think all the E's are missing from that. And it's all one word. House of Psychotic Women from Perverts, from Ethel Kane, just came out at the top of this year. All right, we've got one more category to talk about, and that is the Mount Rushmore of Halloween songs. These are the songs that are so undeniable, such classics that they belong on the Mount Rushmore of Halloween songs.

[Hazel Sills]

So this song, total classic to me, I think, should be on the Mount Rushmore of Halloween music. I'm curious to know what you guys think. When I think scary Halloween music. I think the Cramps, I think of that is a band that is basically like, they're given monsters. Every day is Halloween for them. And so I wanted to play their song. I was a Teenage Werewolf.

[Stephen Thompson]

Racers on my veins.

[Robin Hilton]

The sleight of hand that this song pulls off is that it's got just a hint of camp to it.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

But you could totally imagine this scoring a truly horrifying moment in a film or haunting your dreams.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, it's like, it's not monster mash. It's not Thriller. It's, like, dialed down enough in that, like, campy vampiric energy that it's cool. Like they are at the end of the day, this punk rockabilly group. There's a costuminess to it and there's, like, a goofiness to it, but it's not over the top. It's not Party City.

[Robin Hilton]

Right.

[Stephen Thompson]

It's a more dialed down, screamin Jay Hawkins. I put a spell on you Right. Like, it's going hard Instrumentally but it's not shrieking at you.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, I could see this on the Mount Rushmore, but who is going next to the Krants, Stephen, on this Mount Rushmore of Halloween songs?

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, when we're talking about the Halloween canon and the songs and albums that kind of come back and chart every year, I'm always shocked that one of those isn't a duo from 2009 called Dead Man's Bones. Dead Man's Bones was the duo of a guy named Zach Shields and a fellow you might have heard of named Ryan Gosling and a little someone, little someone feeling very Paul Harvey like. And that little boy whom nobody loved grew up to be Ryan Gosling.

[Robin Hilton]

That was a terrible imitation.

[Stephen Thompson]

It was terrible. That didn't sound anything like Paul Harvey at all. But basically Dead Man's Bones. These two friends, one of whom happened to be Ryan Gosling, you know, they grew up obsessed with Halloween, grew up obsessed with haunted houses and the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. And they made an album together in 2009 and they made a bunch of Halloween themed music, including this song which belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Halloween music. It's called My Body's Azure Zombie for you.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

And like, it has an A list. Superstar at the.

[Robin Hilton]

But he wasn't at the time. I just was checking at his. His filmography. Like, he had done a handful of things. He had done the Notebook. The Notebook, the Notebook.

[Stephen Thompson]

By that point it was definitely.

[Robin Hilton]

But his career did not really take off until like 2010, 11 when he did drive.

[Stephen Thompson]

I mean, but you look at the play count on Spotify and that song has been played like 8 million times.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Wow.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, mine is one that could have gone in the nostalgia category as well because. Well, I think you'll hear why. The Great Pumpkin Waltz, Vince Giraldi from the Great Pumpkin.

[Hazel Sills]

Classic.

[Robin Hilton]

Absolute classic. I think, admittedly, it's not quite the level of a Charlie Brown Christmas. Maybe not that instantly recognizable, but no less a classic.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, I grew up watching all of the Peanuts, like the Christmas special, the Thanksgiving special, the Halloween special, had so much affinity for the Halloween Special where I laugh every time, even to this day when Charlie Brown goes trick or treating and he gets a rock.

[Robin Hilton]

I got a rock.

[Hazel Sills]

I got a rock at every house and everyone else gets candy. That's still like the funny. It's so twisted and sad. Why would you give him keep a.

[Stephen Thompson]

Bowl of rock and case Charlie Brown shirts every time?

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, no, I. This, this also could have gone in the nostalgia bracket for me because I just I love this music so much.

[Robin Hilton]

So we'll go out on this then. From Vince Guaraldi, the Great Pumpkin Waltz from the Great Pumpkin, Stephen Thompson and Hazel Sills, thanks so much to you both.

[Stephen Thompson]

Thank you.

[Hazel Sills]

Thank you.

[Robin Hilton]

And for NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs consider standard.

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