Here’s a discussion of my selections for Can’t Wait For Halloween, Volume 6 of the Green Monkey Music Project.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand
From the album Let Love In. Halloween songs don’t come much better than this. A spooky groove, and great creepy lyrics.

You’re one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by his red right hand

Echo and the Bunnymen – The Yo Yo Man
From their classic Ocean Rain. There are many people who would have gone for “The Killing Moon” off the same album, instead of this song, but those people are wrong. Wrong, I tells ya!

Roky Erickson – Creature With The Atom Brain
Roky was the lead singer for the great Austin, Texas psychedelic band the 13th Floor Elevators. Roky has had mental health issues from time to time, but he’s out and hopefully doing better. He has a real, unironic fascination with the occult and science fiction. This is one of my favorite songs of his. If someone could please do a strange favor for me, please tell me what the sound effect is at approximately the 2 minute, 38 second mark in this song. It has something to do with television (like a test signal or something), but I don’t know what’s it for exactly.

Pink Floyd – Lucifer Sam
We go way, way back to Pink Floyd’s first album, Piper At The Gates of Dawn. I don’t know that it’s so scary, but I think it is ominous. And, of course it has the word Lucifer in the title. Tim ever so slightly ruined this song for me, when he a corrected a lyric I had misheard in this song.

I thought it was:
Black cat’s something I can’t explain

But it actually is:
That cat’s something I can’t explain

Don’t worry, I still sing the superior “Black cat” line.

Flaming Lips – Ice Drummer
This can be found on their EP Providing Needles for Your Balloons, as well as on a tribute album to the band Suicide. This is actually a cover of a song by Suicide’s singer Alan Vega. It’s not immediately obvious this song has a Halloween connection, but in my opinion the lyrics are sufficiently spooky:

Saturn is in the night sky
A freezing, freezing ring of fear
The moon is bright and hanging heavy
A werewolf drives on by in his Chevy

The Now Complete Track Listing!

01 – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand [splotchy]
02 – Echo and the Bunnymen – The Yo Yo Man [splotchy]
03 – Roky Erickson – Creature With The Atom Brain [splotchy]
04 – Pink Floyd – Lucifer Sam [splotchy]
05 – Flaming Lips – Ice Drummer [splotchy]
06 – The Residents – Harry the Head [ideaofprogress]
07 – Lordi – Would You Love a Monsterman? [ideaofprogress]
08 – The Shaggs – It’s Halloween [ideaofprogress]
09 – The Creation – Nightmares [ideaofprogress]
10 – Ashcroft & Bacon – Unseen Hand [ideaofprogress]
11 – Blue Oyster Cult – Godzilla [franksirmarco]
12 – Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London [franksirmarco]
13 – Edgar Winter Group – Frankenstein [franksirmarco]
14 – The Who – Boris The Spider [franksirmarco]
15 – Ministry – (Every Day) is Halloween [franksirmarco]
16 – Dick Dale – Ghostrider In The Sky [chris]
17 – Fats Waller – Abercrombie Had A Zombie [chris]
18 – Tones on Tail – Movement Of Fear [chris]
19 – Donovan – Season Of The Witch [chris]
20 – Velvet Underground – The Black Angel’s Death Song [chris]
21 – Concrete Blonde – Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) [beckeye]
22 – The Warlocks – Angels in Heaven, Angels in Hell [beckeye]
23 – Death Cab for Cutie – I Will Follow You into the Dark [beckeye]
24 – The Hooters – All You Zombies [beckeye]
25 – Sia – Breathe Me [beckeye]
26 – Neko Case – Furnace Room Lullaby [barbara]
27 – Violent Femmes – Country Death Song [barbara]
28 – Chad VanGaalen – Graveyard [barbara]
29 – Matthew Good Band – A Boy and His Machine Gun [barbara]
30 – Jarvis Cocker – I Will Kill Again [barbara]
31 – Iron & Wine – No Moon [manx]
32 – The Dead Texan – When I See Scissors, I Cannot Help But Think Of You [manx]
33 – Pinback – Shag [manx]
34 – Tangerine Dream – Circulation Of Events [manx]
35 – Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 – Brains [manx]
36 – Tom Waits – What’s That He’s Building? [mattyboy]
37 – Soul Coughing – Unmarked Helicopters [mattyboy]
38 – Len Cariou – Prelude: The Ballad of Sweeney Todd [mattyboy]
39 – Tom Lehrer – I Hold Your Hand In Mine [mattyboy]
40 – Joe Jackson – In Every Dream Home [mattyboy]
41 – The Misfits – Death Comes Ripping [dale]
42 – Willard Grant Conspiracy – Ghost of the Girl in The Well [dale]
43 – Siouxsie and the Banshees – Peekaboo [dale]
44 – Bjork – Play Dead [dale]
45 – Richard Shindell – Are You Happy Now? [dale]
46 – Oingo Boingo – Dead Man’s Party [lulu]
47 – Bauhaus – Bela Lugosi is Dead [lulu]
48 – The Cranberries – Zombie [lulu]
49 – The Jazz Butcher – The Devil Is My Friend [lulu]
50 – Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack – Time Warp [lulu]

I added Beckeye ’cause that’s the kind of guy I am.