Halloween Date Night

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3BHUDZ2pzyHaxzEKOzKCWk?dl_branch=1&si=tO-HwbcOQ-S1PIHyqrLTkg

I am predominantly a writer of fiction but when the challenge presented itself, to create a Halloween-themed playlist, I could not pass it by.

I decided to take a slightly different approach to the task and created a playlist designed for a more intimate party for two. For those of you who can happily forego camp costumes, noisy children and choreographed dancing, why not invite someone special around for a Halloween they will never forget?

Imagine a candlelit room; wine on tap; rouged lips; musky perfume.

Leave the punchbowls and apple bobbing for those looking for a livelier affair, and descend into Halloween Date Night – a list of songs designed for long, intense conversations; earnest drags on cigarettes; unmistakable eyefucks; and push-you-against-the-wall-hands-on-neck kisses. Enjoy.

1) Space Monkey – Placebo (2006)

The first song is the enigmatic Space Monkey by Placebo. I’ll be damned if I know what this song is about but when Brian Molko proclaims orgasmically,

We're sewn together

She's born to Mesmer

Beside I stride her

I die inside her

I lose the will to care – about anything - and so will you.

With its jarring, futuristic rhythm and indecipherable, furtively sexual lyrics, this is the perfect opener to Halloween Date Night.

2) Spell – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (2004)

From their somewhat gospelic 2004 double album Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus, Spell is an unassuming slice of magic. A largely conventional song by Bad Seeds standards, Nick Cave’s lyrics are still appropriately mysterious. Employing a string of Romantic images,

Through the woods, and frosted moors

Past the snow-caked hedgerows I

Bed down upon the drifting snow

Sleep beneath the melting sky

the song’s main refrain is quietly simple – I’m falling under your spell. With the swell of faintly manic strings that rise up with this declaration – this love song inevitably leaves you with a sense of mystery and a comforting air of foreboding and uncertainty.

3) A Forest – The Cure (1980)

A Forest is a work of genius, and the perfect third song for Halloween Date Night. The lyric speaker appears to be lost amidst the trees (one can assume a vast maze of very tall pines) as he seeks a girl he has seen and heard as he navigates between the trunks. But by the end of the song, he realises,

The girl was never there

It's always the same

I'm running towards nothing

Again and again and again and again...

It is unclear whether he ever makes it out of A Forest, but the song leaves you with the distinct feeling that he will be stuck there in the pines forevermore being taunted by his phantom lover.

4) Dance of the Clairvoyants – Pearl Jam (2020)

Pearl Jam’s 2020 release, Dance of the Clairvoyants somehow manages to be modern and timeless; dreamlike and philosophical… Eddie Vedder’s harsh, growly warning

So save your predictions,

And burn your assumptions

makes me want to start a cult, masturbate and dance simultaneously every bloody time I hear it. Later he professes, I’m in love with clairvoyants ‘cause their out of this world.

This song is the sexiest protest against toxic masculinity I have ever heard.

5) Space Dementia – Muse (2001)

In Space Dementia, Matt Bellamy famously samples Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2; transcending it to intergalactic heights. Whoever or whatever H8 is, it has had quite an impact and Bellamy is at its mercy:

I'd cut your name in my heart

We'll destroy this world for you

I know you want me to

I chose the XX Anniversary RemiXX from 2021 – purely because of the inclusion of the insidious strings in the second verse.

6) Them Bones – Alice in Chains (1992)

Right, so this may not be an obvious date night song choice but remember – this is Halloween Date Night and the truth is there is no sexier sound in this world than Layne Staley’s voice shouting AH so stick with me.

We can’t overlook the brilliantly simplistic sense of nihilism that rips through this song alongside the wail of Jerry Cantrell’s guitar solo – true; but try making out to it after a few drinks. Just try.

7) Dead Man In My Bed – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (2003)

There is a dead man in my bed, she said

I keep poking at him with my stick

His skin is just so fucking thick

Another NC&TBS offering (well – Halloween Date Night – I could have made this an exclusively NC affair), this narrative ramble – in true Nick Cave style – is, admittedly, a riotous extended metaphor about a dying relationship. It is. But again, the manic atmosphere and lyrics falling and fumbling over each other make it the perfect seventh song for this list. If I’m lying, I’m dying.

8) Dead – Pixies (1989)

You get torn down and get erected

My blood is working but my, my heart is

Dead

Ditto Dead by the eternally perfect Pixies.

You could fuck on the floor to this song.

9) The Killing Moon – Echo & the Bunnymen (1984)

In starlit nights, I saw you

So cruelly, you kissed me

Your lips, a magic world

Your sky, all hung with jewels

This song to me epitomises perfectly my entire vision for Halloween Date Night. Brooding; haunting; lamenting. Not only is it the perfect Halloween Date Night song, it might just be the perfect song. You should be very far into kissing territory by this stage in the playlist. At least.

Enjoy. And you’re welcome.

10) Time Will Melt Us – Don Miggs, Billy Corgan (2020)

Mysterious, haunting, enigmatic and strangely uplifting – I leave you with this oddity to end your strange and hopefully very, very sexy Halloween party for two.

And if it hasn’t worked out that way – you can always stick on the Time Warp.