Whether you’re dressed up and partying the night away, or binging on fun-size candy and horror movies, check out some of our writers’ favorite songs for getting in the spooky spirit.

“Terrified” - Childish Gambino

By Anwuli Onwaeze

Childish Gambino’s “Terrified” from his 2016 album Awaken, My Love! will make you feel the need to run for your life. Opening with a deep bass arpeggio and slow breaths, the song immediately sends chills down your spine. Gambino enters with his unmistakable falsetto, this time quivering and tightened, describing zombies who “want to eat you alive”. His usual use of humor makes a dark appearance in one of the most memorable lines, “I don’t eat fast food, so don’t run tonight”. The song maintains its chilling spirit throughout with a winding guitar solo, tender piano notes, bellowing cackles and vocals that stretch into your ears to wrap paranoia around your mind. Ending with a childlike voice delivering a soulful and somber verse begging the monster to stay, the intensity is sealed. This song weaves into the story of the album perfectly, but the unaccompanied track is also the ultimate song for those spooky, end of October festivities.

“Season Of The Witch” - Lana Del Rey

By Roxana Berentes

“Season Of The Witch” by Lana Del Rey is the epitome of a spooky song for me. The kind that you listen to while walking to class that makes you notice the variety of colored leaves scattered on the ground and just how crisp the air feels on your nose. Originally written by Donovan over 50 years ago, “Season Of The Witch” was covered by Del Rey for the motion picture Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, showcasing her haunting voice with a jazzy tune as the song’s backbone. Her delicate vocals matched with the new angle taken on the song, turning a psychedelic rock song into an eerie tune that is my perfect melody for this time of year.

“Werewolves of London” - Warren Zevon

By Lily Brooks

“Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon is the perfect song to howl along to this Halloween season. The lyrics follow a werewolf making his way around town, and despite the grim lyrics (“little old lady got mutilated late last night,”) it’s quite an upbeat song. Kid Rock sampled the song in “All Summer Long,” though it certainly does not top the original. Warren Zevon is most famous for this song, and the storytelling in his music is superb overall, with famed horror novelist Stephen King even saying he wanted to collaborate with him. It’s just one of those songs that has to be added to your Halloween playlists.

“The Hurdy Gurdy Man” - Donovan

By Patrick Chamber

When David Fincher needed a killer track to compliment the first murder scene depicted in his film Zodiac he looked no further than “The Hurdy Gurdy Man.” This 1968 track from Scottish singer Donovan is essential listening to anyone who wants to hear a chill this October. He croons in a haunting groan that could easily pass for the voice of a ghost, a monotone moan that when paired with the slashing guitar casts an eerie sound. The guitar riff is perhaps the song's most notable aspect, its distortion providing a deliciously dark force to the song that carries it along and perfectly matches Donovan’s depressed drone. Lyrically, the song is vague and open to interpretation, adding to its mystique and overall sense of dread. Furthermore, Zeppelin fans should note that John Bonham, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones were all involved in the production of the song, although their exact contributions remain contested to this day. The heavy sound of the song, which predates the formation of Led Zeppelin by several months, is similar in spirit to the band. If you’re looking for some creepy psychedelic rock this season, look no further.

“Emergency Blimp” - King Krule

By Dan Chiolan

There’s something inexplicably Halloween about this King Krule track-- maybe it’s Archy Marshall’s haunting vocals, or maybe it’s his layering of otherworldly synth sounds over a primarily guitar-driven instrumental. Either way, “Emergency Blimp” strays far from the trademark sound you’d expect from a London-based punk artist. The song’s storytelling is all too paranoid; Marshall’s lyrics paint an evocative picture of a character dealing with insomnia, only to be prescribed useless sleeping pills by a seemingly devious doctor. As with the entirety of King Krule’s discography, there’s an inherent theme of emptiness and mystery permeating throughout “Emergency Blimp”, reminiscent of the haunted houses and paranormally-infested towns that tacky Halloween movies love to document. It won’t give you a jumpscare, but this three-minute track will give you all the Halloween terror you desire.

“Spooky” - Dusty Springfield

By Corey Chun

Dusty Springfield’s “Spooky” is not quite the kind of Halloween song that will make you think of mythical creatures. Instead, it is the auditory blend of the breezy bass line, Springfield’s whispery voice, and the brazen lyrics that will chill you in the best way possible. Hearing the opening lines, “In the cool of the evening / When everything’s getting kind of groovy” in her velvety tone sets the mood for an unpredictable night. For context, Springfield wrote this song in 1968 about hesitantly going out with a boy who will show her love and affection, while simultaneously knowing “his little eye will be a-winkin'” with other girls. This leaves her with the conclusion that “Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little boy like you.” For me, the relationship between this song and Halloween is that they both leave you with an excitingly eerie feeling in the moment. While I am unsure of what exactly will happen this weekend, I know this will be my soundtrack.

“4” - Aphex Twin

By Ian Eisenbrand

The characteristically idiosyncratic ambience of Aphex Twin often recalls the echoes of a long forgotten dream; in a twist, though, Selected Ambient Works Volume II’s “#4” offers the memory of a night enraptured by a harrowing nightmare. This track serves as a worming parasite, twisting its way through the veins of the listener’s subconscious; a malignant force spawned in a swirling cacophony of dissonant organs, haunting bells, and sawing synthesizers that slowly rise and fall with the heartbeat of the creature. Within moments of entering the track’s grips, the listener is spelled into a thick syrup of dark matter, left to saturate in the unseen and unknown of the plasmic twilight. The only opportunity for escape remains in hoping that with the cease of the parasite’s fantasy will also mean its death, but this silence offers no guarantee.

“Mind Playin’ Tricks on Me” - Geto Boys

By Teddy Hudson

“This year, Halloween fell on a weekend/Me and Geto Boys are trick-or-treatin'/Robbin' little kids for bags/'Til a lawman got behind our ass,'' raps the late Bushwick Bill on “Mind Playin’ Tricks on Me,” the classic 1991 track from horrorcore rap group Geto Boys. The lone single off of the group’s third studio album We Can’t Be Stopped, this track juxtaposes horror-themed imagery with the real-world horrors of gang violence, PTSD, and paranoia (“At night I can’t sleep, I toss and turn/Candlesticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned” raps Scarface in the first verse.) These vulnerable and anxious bars are paired with a smooth, chilled-out beat which draws from 70’s soul samples, further accentuating the contrast between the paranoiac Geto Boys and the world around them. The track’s #23 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 laid the cultural foundation for southern horrorcore’s mainstream emergence in the late-90s, and paved the way for the success of popular horrorcore acts like Three Six Mafia, one of the most influential hip-hop groups of all time. This song’s infectious beat and bone-chilling final verse from Bushwick Bill make it worthy of any Halloween playlist.

“A Nightmare On My Street” - DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince

By Elise Christopher

“A Nightmare on My Street” showcases the iconic and easily recognizable style of the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith, a.k.a. The Fresh Prince. It’s classic 80s hip-hop, with a bit of spooky sprinkled in. The Fresh Prince details his encounter with the infamous Freddy Krueger and DJ Jazzy Jeff gets a feature while he meets his demise at the end of the song. Of course, Freddy Krueger’s theme plays on the keys over a simple beat, and it all comes together with Smith’s engaging, albeit corny storytelling. The song is just fun to listen to and the music video, in all its 360p glory, certainly measures up. “A Nightmare on My Street” is a horrorcore rap staple that you wouldn’t want to miss out on.

“Secret” by The Pierces

By Natalia Ortiz

Better take The Pierces’ secret to the grave, otherwise you’ll be living or… well… unliving proof that, as the song goes, two can’t keep a secret if one of them is dead. If you’ve ever watched the hit teen drama Pretty Little Liars, you’ll know this song well. This sinister tune warns us about the outcome of betraying someone’s trust, the consequences of passing on a secret that wasn’t yours to tell in the first place. A tale of sisterly betrayal in which Pierce sister, Catherine, murders her blabbermouth sibling, Allison Pierce in the embodiment of the song’s recurrent premise that “two can’t keep a secret if one of them is dead.” A motto borrowed from Benjamin Franklin’s: “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” Secrets, they’re bound to come out, they burden and cloud our minds for as long as we hold them until we can’t bear it any longer, and we snap and tell someone. But remember… snitches get stitches.

“Light My Fire” - The Doors

By Jared Rowland

“Light my Fire” by The Doors is my personal favorite “spooky song.” This Rock classic from 1967 exemplifies a dark song with Jim Morrison singing about love burning like a “funeral pyre.” The organ solo makes you feel as though you just entered a haunted mansion, and the guitar on it only intensifies these feelings. The song is a psychedelic rock journey and helped pioneer in the 20th century. If you are interested in getting into classic/psychedelic rock I think this a great song to start with, and I would suggest listening to “Light my Fire” when you’re walking on the promenade on a gloomy October day for full effect.

“The Weekend Before Halloween” - Fireworks

By Lang Delapa

The carefree thrill of teenage life, adolescent self-doubt, and the bliss of a Halloweekend night—pop-punk band Fireworks depicts these unforgettable experiences and more in “The Weekend Before Halloween,” a bonus track off their 2011 album Gospel. Lively instrumentals set the scene as the song details the narrator’s trip to East Lansing, Michigan, where he and his friends hang around, blasting Misfits songs and talking on the porch. Yet, even surrounded by friends, the narrator still questions himself, feeling like he was a “part of nothing” that weekend. A closer look into the song’s lyrics reveals deeper themes of insecurity and anxiety, like when he admits he may love Halloween because it’s the holiday “where you get to be somebody else.” But upon the first listen, these confessions go unnoticed, masked by the upbeat, catchy music typical to pop-punk. Though Fireworks never achieved the same success as other pop-punk acts, their nostalgic, simple-yet-meaningful lyrics have made them one of my favorite bands. “The Weekend Before Halloween” captures the full human experience of Halloween—not just the costumes and candy.