What’s Halloween without Alice Cooper? So today’s song is “Welcome to My Nightmare” I was going to go with the version he did on the Muppet Show but then I stumbled over this 1975 version that guest starred Vincent Price.
Enjoy.
Today’s song is “When the night wind howls” from Gilbert & Sullivan‘s Ruddigore.
I can’t say Ruddigore is my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operetta for the most part it’s silly even by their standards but this is still one of my favorite songs from them and definitely one of the best bits of Halloween music I know.
This clip is from the version they used to play on PBS which is especially fun since it has Vincent Price as the “villain”, Sir Despard Murgatroyd of Ruddigore
For the next item in our Halloween playlist we have the opening to The Nightmare Before Christmas composed by Danny Elfman.
I’m not a big fan of Elfman’s work,most of the time he sounds like he’s quoting himself, but when he is good he is very good and the score for Nightmare is one of those times.
The movie as a whole is one of the reasons I became a fan of Henry Selick‘s work. It’s wonderfully innovative.
I was very tempted to use Marilyn Manson’s version for this but it’s best to stick with the original don’t you think?
For the second night will be Carpe Noctem (Seize the Night) from Tanz der Vampire the German Musical version of The Fearless Vampire Killers.
I’ve been very fond of German musical theater lately and Tanz der Vampire is one of my favorites. Regrettably it bombed when it came stateside. From what I’ve heard the producers didn’t understand how something could be comedy AND horror so turned it into a ridiculous farce.
If you’d like an English version of this Meatloaf did a very good version of it. I went with the original because I like the dance number.
Well it looks like the season is upon us and with Halloween just half a moth a way I thought It’s time to get into the mood with my Halloween playlist. This playlist is very much a work in progress and since I generally don’t work on it any time other than October it’s not very big and mostly classical. I’m always looking out for suggestions (I definitely plan to compare notes with a friend of mine whose collection of Halloween music can be measured in days.)
So anyway let’s start with one of my favorites, Modest Mussorgsky‘s Night on Bald Mountain. It’s a wonderful theme poem that embodies the raw emotion of a witch’s sabbath and the terror of the unknown.
Like most people I discovered Mussorgsky’s work through Disney’s Fantasia and was blown away from it. I’ve always been a huge fan of the animator Bill Tytla and his animation of Chernobog is easily his strongest work.
