Halloween hit list runs the gamut from comedy to tragedy

This was an especially enjoyable Challenge by the Vocal team especially for someone like me who loves music as well as scary movies, stories and poems. Australia doesn't really celebrate Halloween but I'm getting into the spirit -- ha ha -- nonetheless. Here's my play list of 13 songs (appropriately) in which I have tried to include some Aussie classics:

1. Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush

Bush wrote this song (released in 1978), based upon the Emily Bronte novel (1847), when she was just 18, inspired by a 1967 TV adaptation of the book. Bush said she was captured by the final scene of Cathy's ghost at the window of Heathcliff's manor house, now in disrepair, and Heathcliff himself dying out on the Moors. She read the book then penned the song, which was a worldwide smash hit propelling Bush to overnight stardom. It's desperately tragic and the strange music video of Bush waving in the wind then disappearing has remained stuck in my memory.

Horror aspect: Being trapped in Purgatory forever more.

2. Annabel Lee by Stevie Nicks

This beautiful, haunting song which debuted on Nicks' 2011 album "In Your Dreams" was written by the songstress when she was 17 but stayed under wraps until Dave Stewart of Eurythmics' fame convinced Nicks to dust it off for their collaboration on "In Your Dreams". The words exactly mirror the Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) poem of the same name and recount the death of a young woman. Her heartbroken lover, the song's narrator, arrives too late for the funeral so spends his nights sleeping on her (Annabel's) grave because that is where they'd had their trysts. Sadly the poem could have been about any one of the significant women in Poe's short life who all died young. His child bride, Virginia Clemm, died at just 25, after 11 years of marriage to Poe.

Horror aspect: Losing the love of your life at a young age.

3. Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd

This eponymous tune on the band's 11th album "The Wall" (1979) is on the list because of its sad, faraway undertones. One of the reasons I've included it is because it was a perfect collaboration between the music of lead guitarist Dave Gilmour and the words of bassist/lead singer Roger Waters, a union which was later to fall apart so bitterly. Being pumped full of sedatives so he can finish the show, the hapless protagonist is so lost, frightened then ultimately resigned to his fate.

Horror aspect: Being imprisoned by your own mind and relying purely on medication to get you through another day.

4. Horror Movie by Skyhooks

This little-known pop song was released in 1973 and was a big hit in Australia. It describes a "horror movie" in which kids are fighting, dogs are biting, cars are smashing, cops are bashing and planes are crashing then cleverly tells us in the last verse that it is in fact the "6.30 news". I was only eight when the song came out but I loved the twist at the end and the band's commentary on the chaos of every day life.

Horror aspect: That the real world is a trillion times' more horrific than fiction.

5. Witchy Woman by The Eagles

Released as the second single on the band's debut album, "Eagles", in 1972, the song is framed from the perspective of an awestruck protagonist marveling at a witch who "flies so high", "has the moon in her eyes" and "(has) sparks fly(ing) from her fingertips. This is definitely a very dark song about a mysterious woman with "raven hair" and "ruby lips" who enchants and disturbs anyone who crosses her path. It was a toss-up between this song and Cliff Richard's "Devil Woman" (1976) (incidentally featured on the soundtrack to 2017 movie "I Tonya") but in the end, I decided against the latter because of its cliched message that men are just innocent and hapless victims of conniving and manipulative women.

Horror aspect: "Witches" of all genders can and will lead you down a dark and doomed path if you let them.

6. Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett and the Crypt Kickers

Sorry but I couldn't go past this 1962 novelty song which hit number 1 in the lead-up to Halloween that year and has been a perennial favorite ever since. It was a toss-up between this one, "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker Jnr, "Thriller" by Michael Jackson or anything from the 1975 movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" as my "obvious song". I finally decided on this one because I remember hearing it for the first time as a kid in the late 1960s and realizing that scary could also be funny. I also loved all of the cute, rhyming words in the lyrics, night/sight; smash/flash/mash; abodes/electrodes. Bless!

Horror aspect: Scary can sometimes be downright hilarious.

7. Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones

The opening track on the band's 1968 album "Beggar's Banquet", the song was one of the first which sprang to mind when compiling this list. It is written from the perspective of the Devil and mentions moments in history when he could be perceived as having had the upper hand including the crucifixion of Jesus, the execution of the Russian royal family, the tank warfare of World War II and the assassination of both President John F Kennedy and his younger brother, Robert.

Horror aspect: The Devil has and always will move among us wreaking havoc if we let him.

8. Pet Sematary by The Ramones

Released in 1989 by US punk rockers, The Ramones, the song was written for the Stephen King horror movie of the same name. The back story is intriguing. Apparently King is a huge fan of the band's and invited them to his home in Maine. King gave bassist Dee Dee Ramone a copy of his book "Pet Sematary" whereupon he retreated to King's basement to pen the song in just under an hour. The band declare they do not want to be buried in a pet sematary because as the book details, people and pets come back to life there in a grotesque and demonic form.

Horror aspect: Based on a novel and film about resurrecting loved ones only to find they are strange and demonic phantoms of their former selves.

9. The End by The Doors

I chose this song chiefly because of the monologue by band talisman Jim Morrison partway through where he describes an oedipal slaying of an entire family by their deranged son. Band founder, Ray Manzarek, explained that Morrison had worked on a student production of Oedipus Rex at Florida State University and the spoken story was basically a re-telling of that. Even so, it's pretty disturbing with its climax of "Jimbo" screaming into the microphone. The song was also used in the pivotal, final scenes of "Apocalypse Now" (1979) in which the protagonist, burnt-out Captain Benjamin Willard, finally meets his nemesis, Colonel Walter E Kurtz, in a Hell-on-Earth colony in the middle of a jungle during the Vietnam War.

Horror aspect: Frightening, emotionless interpretation of "Oedipus Rex" in the middle of a 12-minute, creepy song building to a banshee-like screaming crescendo.

10. Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan

This 1968 hit by Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan definitely makes the list chiefly because it is the opening and closing music to the creepy 2007 movie "Zodiac" about a spate of as-yet unsolved serial murders in California in the 1970s. The "Hurdy Gurdy Man" of the song seems other-worldly and sinister, not to mention evasive, plaguing the narrator in his dreams. In a similar vein, the "Zodiac Killer" is or was absolutely evasive and was never brought to justice.

Horror aspect: A sinister, story-telling man will inevitably catch up to us while we sleep.

11. Disturbia by Rihanna

This 2007 song by Rihanna describes the horror of never being able to achieve true piece of mind because odd and strange thoughts are like thieves in the night robbing you of sleep and contentment. "Out my life, out my head, Don't want to think about it , Feels like I'm going insane, yeah" encapsulates this unease in a verse. After the past 18 months, I can really relate to this constant feeling of disquiet and uncertainty about the future.

Horror aspect: Not being able to escape intrusive thoughts such that both your sleep and waking hours are disrupted and sometimes even cruelly upended.

12. Fire by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

This 1968 trans-Atlantic hit makes the list because of the confused, psychedelic melodies, the singer's weird headpiece and announcement at the start of the song that he is the "God of Hellfire".

Horror aspect: Once you're in Hell, there's nothing but fire.

13. Hell's Bells by AC/DC

From the Aussie heavy metal band's smash album "Back in Black" released in 1980, this ominous song is a tribute to "Acka Dacka" lead singer Bon Scott who had died the same year from acute alcohol poisoning. His replacement and friend Brian Johnson designed the song to start with the solemn tolling of a heavy bell which is a fantastic lead-in. The song's title is a nod to Scott's legendary reputation of "raising Hell" wherever he went and of course, to conjure up images of entry to the underworld.

Horror aspect: Death awaits all of us, sooner rather than later for some.