The Surprising Inspiration Behind 7 Classic Halloween Songs

Although not written for Halloween, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” became a seasonal staple thanks to its theatrical vocals and supernatural imagery.

According to American Songwriter, Hawkins initially intended the song as a straightforward love ballad. But then producer Arnold Maxin “got everybody drunk and we came out with this weird version,” Hawkins once told The Los Angeles Times.

Released in 1956, the song was banned in some places because of its intense sound that Hawkins called “cannibalistic, like a man-eating somebody.” An edit made it more palatable to a wide audience, though Hawkins embraced the eerie persona, appearing onstage with skulls, horns and elaborate costumes.

Hawkins’ version wasn’t a chart hit, but the song became a standard. Nina Simone recorded a version in 1965 that reached No. 23 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and artists including Annie Lennox, The Animals, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Marilyn Manson have covered it.

Written and performed by Sheb Wooley, “The Purple People Eater” became one of the defining novelty hits of the 1950s. According to a 1958 Time magazine article, Wooley wrote the song in an hour. To create the creature’s distinctive voice, he manipulated recording speeds, while the sound of its horn came from a saxophone recorded at a slow speed then sped up in playback.

Lerner says the story of the “thing comin’ out of the sky” with “one long horn and one big eye” reflects the era’s fascination with alien invasion films and science fiction. “The Atomic Age—the new realities of living in a world with nuclear weapons—was happening at the same time as the Space Race was heating up between the U.S. and the USSR,” he says. “Many of these science fiction films had stories revolving around alien invasions or attacks by creatures made possible by exposure to radiation.”

Released in 1958, the song reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard pop chart and became an international hit. Time reported that the record sold 1.5 million copies in nine weeks and inspired a wave of merchandise, including dolls, hats and T-shirts.

Few Halloween songs are as enduring as Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash.” According to Billboard, Pickett, known for impersonating horror legend Boris Karloff, wrote the song with Leonard “Lenny” Capizzi as a spoof of early-1960s dance crazes such as the Twist and the Mashed Potato. Pickett originally proposed the title “Monster Twist,” while Capizzi suggested the more timely “Monster Mashed Potato.”

“In less than two hours we had the whole thing,” Pickett told Billboard, which reported the song was recorded in one take. Producer Gary S. Paxton relied on homemade effects to create the song’s spooky sounds, including chain rattles, bubbling cauldrons and a coffin opening.

Released in September 1962, “Monster Mash” held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks just before that Halloween. In Britain, however, the BBC initially banned it as “too morbid.” It finally reached No. 3 there in 1973.

Unlike earlier novelty hits, the Blue Öyster Cult song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” became a Halloween favorite precisely because of its association with death and horror movies. Released in 1976, the song reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the band’s biggest hit.

Despite its eerie reputation, songwriter and the song’s lead vocalist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser told GQ the song was never meant to be scary. He said he was preoccupied with his heart arrhythmia at the time and wanted to write “a love story about transcending death.” However, its haunting guitar riff, references to the Grim Reaper and mysterious lyrics led people to connect it with horror movies.

“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” appeared in John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween and later in Scream, The Frighteners, Zombieland and Gone Girl. It also gained a new generation of fans in 2000 with the famous “Saturday Night Live” sketch “More Cowbell.”

Warren Zevon’s 1978 “Werewolves of London” came out of a songwriting session inspired by the classic 1935 horror movie Werewolf of London. According to American Songwriter, Zevon and his collaborators built the song around the image of a sophisticated werewolf roaming London, including the absurd opening lines about the monster carrying a Chinese menu in the rain.

The song, released in January 1978 on the album “Excitable Boy,” became Zevon’s biggest hit, spending 12 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at No. 21. It has appeared in several films, including Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, and has been covered by artists such as David Bowie and the Grateful Dead.

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the title track of his massive 1982 hit album, evolved after songwriter Rod Temperton drew inspiration from Jackson’s love of horror movies, according to Rolling Stone. One of the song’s defining features is horror movie icon Vincent Price’s spoken-word contribution at the end of the track. Temperton wrote the now-famous monologue just before the recording session, and Price nailed it in two takes.

After being released again as a single in early 1984, “Thriller” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and found success internationally, too. Yet the song’s biggest impact might have been its groundbreaking music video. Directed by John Landis, the nearly 14-minute video turned the song into a mini horror movie. Its $500,000 budget made it the most expensive music video ever produced up to that point. In 2009, it became the first music video selected for preservation in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.

Lerner says Jackson’s shocking transformation into a werewolf-like creature then a zombie are brought to life through striking visual effects, which help explain the song’s staying power more than 40 years after its release. “The enduring popularity of the graveyard zombie choreography will keep this song around for a long time,” he says.

Written for the 1984 supernatural comedy Ghostbusters, Ray Parker Jr.’s theme song became a big hit. Two months after the film’s release, the Ghostbusters title track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for three weeks.

The music video, packed with celebrity cameos from Carly Simon, John Candy, Chevy Chase, Melissa Gilbert and more, helped make the song nearly as recognizable as the film. “‘Ghostbusters’ eschews the familiar creepy horror sounds found in other Halloween songs,” Lerner says. “Ray Parker Jr.’s song riffs on low-budget television ads: ‘who you gonna call?’”

The song earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song, and the phrase “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts” became an enduring quote.