In my handy little calender where I am tracking this ambitious project of mine, I had noted today as ‘Halloween Party Music Day’. Putting together playlists for random things is something I love to do. (Me and everyone else in the world, I’m aware). But as my song list spiraled wildly out of control, I decided to chop it up into thematic bits. We start here, with songs about ghosts and hauntings.
I attempted not to include any where ‘ghost’ was used as a metaphor for a broken heart or love. I wanted songs about ghosts. This knocked great songs like ‘Walking with a Ghost’ by Teagan and Sarah and “Ghost in the House” by Alison Krause out of contention. And I wanted songs with lyrics, so the entire run of NiN’s “GhostsI thru IV”, their instrumental records, were out too.
The following is presented alphabetically, in order not to show off my favorites:
“Beloved”“ VNV Nation
“Dead Man’s Party”“ Oingo Boingo
“Dead Souls”“ Joy Division
“Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man”“ Concrete Blonde
“Ghost Story”“ John Cale
“Happy Phantom”“ Tori Amos
“Haunted”“ Poe
“Haunted”“ The Pogues and Sinead O’Connor
“I am Stretched on Your Grave”“ Dead Can Dance
“Is There a Ghost”“ Band of Horses
“Little Ghost” — The White Stripes
“Long Black Veil’ ““ Johnny Cash
“Love Vigilante”“ New Order
“Mischievous Ghost”“ Elvis Costello
“My Wife and My Dead Wife”“ Robyn Hitchcock
“Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry”“ Nick Cave
“Skeleton in the Closet”“ Louis Armstrong
“Suffer the Little Children”“ The Smiths
“The 59 Sound”“ Gaslight Anthem
“The Cool”“ Lupe Fiasco
“The Ghost in You”“ Psychedelic Furs
“The Jezebel Spirit”“ Brian Eno and David Bryne
“Turn Around”“ They Might Be Giants
“Unvisible Zed”“ Gogol Bordello
“Where the Wild Roses Grow”“ Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue
“Wuthering Heights”“ Kate Bush
“Yankee Bayonett”“ The Decemberists
“Your Ghost”“ Kristen Hersh
What would you add to this playlist?
3 replies on “31 Days of Halloween with Slay — Day 10, Ghost of a Song”
Ahhhh. You included 59 Sounds by Gaslight Anthem. Love it.
When I think about songs about ghosts, I always go to “Riding with Private Malone” every single time. It’s an older country song, so sorry if that doesn’t actually flow with your list. It just always gets me.
That’s a great suggestion! I’m curating these as thematic playlists and not worrying about the genre.