Five spooky songs to add to your Halloween playlist

Which tracks make your Halloween playlist each year? For me, ‘Werewolves of London’ by Warren Zevon is a must - I will never not sing along to 'little old lady got mutilated late last night'. Then, there’s ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials (because what’s more haunting than Thatcherism?), and ‘Spooky’ by Dusty Springfield, which is just timelessly cool and sexy. Nina Simone’s bewitching rendition of ‘I Put a Spell on You’ is a necessity, as is the Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’. And let’s not forget the funkiest Halloween cut of all: Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’.

The stone-cold classics can only take us so far, though. It's time to infuse your spooky season playlist with some newness; here are a few deeper cuts you'll want to add.

• Spellling and the Mystery School - ‘Haunted Water’ (2023)

 ‘Haunted Water’ drowns the listener in thick, heavy, retro synth. In her wild, idiosyncratic vocal style – reminiscent of Kate Bush and Joanne Newsom, but very much her own– Cabral gives a foreboding warning: “it’s not enough/To build a bridge/Over/Haunted water”. These sparse lyrics curl through the song like smoke, while the synth, guitar and drums drive on in the background, darkly ever-present.

• Helen - ‘Witch’ (1983)

‘Witch’ was released in 1983. All the best Italo disco came out in 1983. And, like much of the best Italo, ‘Witch’ is charmingly clunky, driven by a thick, relentless drum-machine beat. The vocalist delights in the mystery of an enchanting woman who, as a spacey snippet of layered whispers tells us, is “a witch!”

• Kate Bush – ‘Waking the Witch’ (1985)

‘Waking the Witch’ puts the listener through the terrifying experience of being witch hunted. The track gets off to a slow start before tugging the listener into a disorienting, dizzying whirlwind of ritual, rhyme, judgement and punishment. A sinister male voice booms through the track – not a demon, but a tyrannical witch hunter.

• Backxwash and Devi McCallion – ‘Spells’ (2020)

‘Spells’ excellently evokes the experience of slowly sinking under the influence of some dark potion or powerful hex. McCallion’s low, throaty hook is woozy, potent, addicting. The hook is grounded by Backxwash’s moody, intense, cathartic rap verse.

• Bat For Lashes – ‘Vampires’ (2019)

‘Vampires’ is the soundtrack to a movie that exists only in the imagination of Natasha Khan, the musician behind Bat For Lashes. ‘Vampires’, like the rest of the album Lost Girls, is inspired by Khan’s daydreams of a vampire girl gang roaming the Californian desert. The listener, though, can project their own haunting daydreams onto this brooding, 80s-infused instrumental track. During spooky season, atmosphere is everything. Saxophone is the star of 'Vampires' – just embrace it and the 80s B movie campiness it conjures.