Happy Halloween, all you vamps and ghouls. As you’re doing the “Monster Mash” and gorging yourself on sugary treats, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got some good tunes on, right? Sure, Boris Pickett has got the Halloween music thing down, but if you want some more spooky tunes for your Halloween soundtrack, well we’ve got you covered. We’ve even rated all our jams for you–the more O’s, the more banshee screams we had to let loose when listening to the song. Have fun with those tricks and treats tonight, folks!

 

“Thriller” by Michael Jackson

The lyrics: “’Cause this is thriller/Thriller night/And no one’s gonna save you/From the beast about to strike”

The rating: OO

The verdict: This is a classic, hands down. You can’t have Halloween without a bit of zombie “Thriller” dancing. No, it’s not particularly scary now, but remember that first time you saw Michael Jackson get zombified? And that little bit of the cliffhanger at the end? We’ve got chills just thinking about it.

 

“Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon

The lyrics: “I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand/Walkin’ through the streets of Soho in the rain/He was lookin’ for the place called Lee Ho Fooks/Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein”

The rating: O

The verdict: Can we just point out how hilarious the thought of a werewolf looking for beef chow mein is?

 

“Pet Sematary” by the Ramones

The lyrics: “I don’t want to be buried in a pet sematary/I don’t want to live my life again”

The rating: OO

The verdict: These guys get extra points for the concept they based this off of. I mean, did you see that movie?

 

“This House is Haunted” by Alice Cooper

The lyrics: “A cold wind blew right up my spine, it was the break of dawn/A little voice went deep inside, told me she was gone”

The rating: OO

The verdict: The clever part of this song lies in the fact that it’s not just a song about ghosts and haunting; it’s also a song about heartbreak and loneliness. But if anybody knows how to make something creepy and ghoulish—even an unfortunate breakup—then it’s Mr. Cooper.

 

“Wicked Annabella” by the Kinks

The lyrics: “Little children who are good/Should always go to sleep at night/’Cause wicked Annabella is up in the sky/Hopin’ they will open their eyes”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: Looking for a lullaby you can sing to little children to give them nightmares? Well then, you’re in luck!

 

“John Wayne Gacy Jr.” by Sufjan Stevens

The lyrics: “Look underneath the house there/Find the few living things, rotting fast/In their sleep all were dead”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: This morbid tune about a serial killer seems to come out of left field for Sufjan, who isn’t really one for talking about grisly murders and the rotting victims.

 

“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels Band

The lyrics: “’Fire on the Mountain.’ Run, boys, run!/The Devil’s in the house of the rising sun”

The rating: O

The verdict: This popular song has the devil as a loser in a musical standoff. The message: Don’t gamble on a soul unless you know you’re the best picker around—in heaven and hell and everything in between.

 

“Hells Bells” by AC/DC

The lyrics: “I won’t take no prisoners, won’t spare no lives/Nobody’s putting up a fight/I got my bell, I’m gonna take you to hell/I’m gonna get you, Satan get you”

The rating: OO

The verdict: This rock anthem is menacing and powerful and definitely something to make you get up and listen. This song is enough to get you on Satan’s side.

 

“Little Ghost” by the White Stripes

The lyrics: “Little ghost, little ghost/One I’m scared of the most/Can you scare me up a little bit of love?”

The rating: OO

The verdict: Ghost relationships are not only creepy, but also very likely to fail.

 

“Sympathy for the Devil” by Rolling Stones

The lyrics: “Just as every cop is a criminal/And all the sinners saints/As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer/I’m in need of some restraint”

The rating: OO

The verdict: Is there a Doctor Faustus in the house? This Stones jam is pretty classic for not only the music itself, but also the creative lyrics. Who else but the Stones would talk for the devil himself?

 

“Country Death Song” by the Violent Femmes

The lyrics: “It was at that time, I swear I lost my mind/I started making plans to kill my own kind”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: Unsure of how grisly a song can get? In this song, the narrator sings about how he went crazy, threw his daughter down a well and hanged himself in the barn.

 

“Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo

The lyrics: “Waiting for an invitation to arrive/Goin’ to a party where no one’s still alive”

The rating: OO

The verdict: We’re just glad we didn’t get an invite to this party.

 

“Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult

The lyrics: “40,000 men and women every day (Like Romeo and Juliet)/40,000 men and women every day (redefine happiness)/Another 40,000 coming every day (We can be like they are)”

The rating: OO

The verdict: Did you notice how seductive this reaper sounds?

 

“Lullaby” by the Cure

The lyrics: “On candy-stripe legs, the Spiderman comes/Softly through the shadow of the evenin’ sun/Stealin’ past the windows of the blissfully dead/Looking for the victim shivering in bed”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: OK, this is definitely not your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. We’ve got nightmares for days.

 

“Witchy Woman” by the Eagles

The lyrics: “Raven hair and ruby lips/Sparks fly from her fingertips/Echoed voices in the night/She’s a restless spirit on an endless flight”

The rating: O

The verdict: Doesn’t this one kind of remind you of Hocus Pocus?

 

“Boris the Spider” by the Who

The lyrics: “Look, he’s crawling up my wall/Black and hairy, very small/Now he’s up above my head/Hanging by a little thread”

The rating: O

The verdict: This one doesn’t have the scare factor of some of the others on this list—unless you’ve got a fear of creepy-crawlies.

 

“The Rake’s Song” by the Decemberists

The lyrics: “Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove/Dawn was easy, she was drowned in the bath/Eziah fought but was easily bested/Burned his body for incurring my wrath”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: Some guys would rather kill themselves than settle down and start a family. Instead, the narrator of this song kills all of his children in a sociopathic spree. There’s no daddy dearest in this song.

 

 “Evil Walks” by AC/DC

The lyrics: “Black shadow hangin’ over your shoulder/Black marks up against your name/Your green eyes couldn’t get any colder/There’s bad poison runnin’ through your veins”

The rating: OO

The verdict: Black shadows, black marks, poison, black widows, webs, broomsticks—this song has got every evil thing you could possibly want.

 

“Dead Babies” by Alice Cooper

The lyrics: “Dead babies can’t take care of themselves/Dead babies can’t take things of the shelf/Well, we didn’t want you anyway”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: Really, Cooper, really? Dead babies. Great. Now we have that visual.

 

“We Suck Young Blood” by Radiohead

The lyrics: “Are you sweet?/Are you fresh?/Are you strung up by the wrists?/We want the young blood”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: Simple and super creepy, this song tells you exactly what it wants: your young blood.

 

“Bo Meets the Monster” by Bo Diddley

The lyrics: “There was a one-eyed-purple-people-eater lookin’ at me”

The rating: O

The verdict: There’s nothing funnier than a one-eyed-purple-people-eater. Despite their little habit of eating people, we heard that they can be quite polite dinner guests…

 

“Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” by David Bowie

The lyrics: “Scary monsters, super creeps/Keep me running, running scared”

The rating: O

The verdict: We’re definitely not scared of Bowie … just please don’t show us that Diamond Dogs cover again.

 

“Devil in My Car” by the B-52s

The lyrics: “I’m going to hell in my old Chevrolet/I don’t know which way/Oh, help, devil’s in my car”

The rating: OO

The verdict: It looks like the devil isn’t the best passenger to have during a road trip. Who knew?

 

“Walking with a Ghost” by Tegan and Sara/White Stripes (cover)

The lyrics: “I was walking with a ghost/I said please, please don’t insist”

The rating: O

The verdict: It’s hard not to love this song—both the original and the White Stripes cover.

 

“Feed My Frankenstein” by Alice Cooper

The lyrics: “I’m a hungry man, but I don’t want pizza/I’ll blow down your house and then I’m gonna eat ya/Bring you to a simmer, right on time/Run my greasy fingers up your greasy spine”

The rating: OOO

The verdict: Wait, are we talking about sex or cannibalism? Either way, how about we get takeout instead? We heard there’s a werewolf around here who knows a good place for Chinese…

 

“Chain Saw” by the Ramones

The lyrics: “Texas chain saw massacre/They took my baby away from me/But she’ll never get out of there”

The rating: OO

The verdict: Again, the Ramones score an extra scream out of us just because of the movie reference. Leatherface, anyone?

 

“Superstition” by Stevie Wonder

The lyrics: “Very superstitious, writing’s on the wall/Very superstitious, ladders ‘bout to fall/13-month-old baby broke the lookin’ glass/Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past”

The rating: O

The verdict: No, this one isn’t that scary, but it’s still a popular, funky Wonder number that has a very good message: Don’t just believe in things you don’t understand, because then that’s when you’re going to get really spooked.