Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I did not think this series of blog posts out fully before I started writing it, and maybe I did not do something smart like write out the thirty-one pieces of music I wanted to have on this list before I started writing it. Maybe that is part of why this is not a ranked list, and seems kind of random, and maybe that's why today's piece is the third appearance by No More Kings on this list, which is not to say that all three of these songs do not belong on this list.
The issue is certainly not that I do not have more than 31 tracks on my Halloween playlist, there is more music on there now than can actually be played in a single Halloween night, but some of them are different versions of the same song (at least 3 versions of "Ghost Riders in the Sky", 3 of "The Phantom of the Opera", 2 "Gravity Falls", etc), and it grows each year ("Wellington Paranormal" is a new addition this year, as I was unaware of the show's existence prior).
Still, there are more than 31 different pieces, even discounting remixes and covers, but while some songs may be good enough to actually play on the list, are they good enough to make it into a list of 31, or do they fall into the "Rock Lobster" category?
"Rock Lobster" category?
Yes, "Rock Lobster" Category.
That term refers to the song by the B-52's that I have seen show up on countless Halloween compilation CDs despite if being about the beach and sea life and not at all anything even remotely to do with Halloween, or ghosts, or monsters, or death, or anything even remotely creepy! Why does it make it onto Halloween discs? I assume it is because the vocals and synthesizer in it do sounds like they belong in a spooky song. I expect that if I originally heard this song in a foreign language, I would think it was something creepy, and so I put songs in the "Rock Lobster" category if they either have what sounds like a Halloween-adjacent title or have a spooky sound despite the lyrics not being spooky.
So do I put "Rock Lobster" songs on this list? Does Weezer's "Haunt You Every Day" really count as "Spooky"? What about Shiny Toy Guns' "Ghost Town"?
What about other novelty songs that haven't made it so far? "Purple People Eater?" "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"? "Li'l Red Riding Hood"?
Then there are all the other theme songs that are on my list, but do they belong on this one? The themes to "Blade Runner", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Army or Darkness", "Halloween", "Friday the 13th", and "Harry Potter" are all on my actual playlist, but if I had to cut it down to 31, would any of them make it?
Anyway, yeah, it's hard to narrow it down to just the 31 I want to share with you, so I figured why not go with something you may not have heard before, and that is why our penultimate song on this list is another No More King's song.
According to Wikipedia, "The Living Dead" is from their album "III", which I find weird because I have it off of a disc called "1973 "Linton Edition"", which seems to have the exact same track list as "III", and I actually cannot seem to find any reference to the CD I have, which was purchased through the official No More Kings site, online at all. Which is weird.
Anyway, "The Living Dead" is sung from the point of view of a zombie apocalypse survivor who has reached a point in his post apocalyptic existence where the shambling corpses of former humanity just annoys him due to how much noise they make.
This song gives me some real Billy Joel circa "My Life" vibes, but I don't know if that is intentional or not; it very easily could be.
I promise that this is the last zombie themed song on this list... being that the next part is the last one, that should be an easy promise to keep.
No comments:
Post a Comment