The Second Sense: A Halloween Song For Every Land

In my various ruminations about how to further dress up the Disneyland Resort for the Halloween season, I have touched on the subject of seasonal music loops. I always include a few examples in my proposals—songs with spooky subject matter in the right genre for the area—but this time I thought I'd try something a little different and come up with one signature Halloween song for each area in both parks.

And for an extra bit of challenge...none of them can be Disney tunes. No “Skeleton Dance,” no “Headless Horseman,” no “This Is Halloween.” The Disney theme parks are in danger of losing themselves completely in self-reference, so I'm pulling back from that a bit.

Be fairly warned...this is a video-heavy post.

Disneyland Park

Main Street, USA: American Symphony Orchestra – Hallowe'en Dance

This is the oldest piece of music created specifically for Halloween that I have been able to find, dating all the way back to 1909!* That puts it in the era of Walt Disney's childhood, which—in case you missed the memo—is the basis for Main Street's period theming, and it has the sort of marching band/light orchestra instrumentation that we associate with this era.

Adventureland: The Creature From the Black Lagoon Theme

This one gave me a lot of trouble. Halloween and Adventureland don't actually intersect that much—the late-autumn imagery, with chilly winds and leafless trees and so on, is rather at odds with the tropical setting that's almost nothing but big leaves and flowers, etc. You can certainly set a good horror story in the jungle, but I was unable to find any good songs illustrating the concept.

Oh sure, lots of Halloween playlists include “Witch Doctor (Ooh Eeh Ooh Aah Aah),” but I find two big strikes against it. First of all, I think the main reason people associate it with Halloween is the word “witch.” If you look at the actual lyrics, it's a silly little novelty song about someone with a crush, more suited to Valentine's Day than Halloween. Second of all...it's hella racist. Adventureland has enough uncomfortable colonialist baggage baked into its very premise for me to voluntarily add more, yeesh.

So as an alternative, I present you with the main theme from a classic monster movie—a monster that would fit in quite well in Adventureland, if you ask me. Can you imagine the Creature rising out of the Jungle Cruise river? I can.

New Orleans Square: The New Orleans Owls – White Ghost Shivers

There is of course no shortage of Halloween-ready songs and instrumentals suitable for New Orleans Square, even once we disqualify any and all Disney productions. Halloween may not be the first holiday people think of in connection with New Orleans, but with all the supernatural folklore, swampland, voodoo imagery, and the like, it's a natural fit. There's a reason the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries are set there, after all.

So really my challenge here was deciding which direction to go. Ultimately, I settled on a period-appropriate jazz piece with a suitably spooky title, by a group with “New Orleans” in the name.

Critter Country: Charlie Daniels Band – The Devil Went Down to Georgia

A song about the Devil probably isn't the first thing most people would think of associating with the increasingly kid-friendly Critter Country, but not only is it a bluegrass standard, the setting of Georgia seemed all too appropriate. The Pooh Bear content can't completely excise the area's rural Southern sensibilities, and Splash Mountain itself literally takes place in Georgia. (At least Song of the South does, and we have no reason to assume the ride has been transplanted.)

There are many covers of this song, including one by Disneyland's own erstwhile bluegrass sensation Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, but I decided to go back to the source: the Charlie Daniels Band.

Frontierland: Gene Autry – Ghost Riders in the Sky

I think this one speaks for itself. Can there be another ghost song with as strong an Old West vibe as this classic?

Fantasyland: Franz Schubert/Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Erlkönig

If you thought this was where I would finally have to lift my ban on actual Disney songs, so that I could illustrate Fantasyland with a classic Villain song...boy is your face about to be red. The perfect Halloween number for this land of fairy tales was composed over 200 years ago, when Schubert set music to Goethe's famous poem about a goblin who carries off the souls of children traveling through the woods at night.

Mickey's Toontown: Charles Mintz & Scrappy Cartoon – I'm a Ghost

I was unable to uncover the context of this song, but if it's the same Charles Mintz who employed Walt Disney in the 1920s, that gives it a tangential connection to Disney's early cartoons without being a Disney production itself. If it's not the same...first of all that's an amazing coincidence, two Charles Mintzes involved in the dawn of the cartoon industry, and second of all it's still a cartoon character singing.

Tomorrowland: Mannheim Steamroller – Crystal

I keep saying that if they ever do start giving Tomorrowland its own seasonal music loops, Mannheim Steamroller would be a good source to pull from. This track, included on the first Halloween album, has the most Tomorrowland-ish vibe of any Mannheim Steamroller piece that I am aware of.

California Adventure

Buena Vista Street: Jack Hylton – Bogey Wail

For Buena Vista Street, the only real consideration was time period. I think this might be my favorite Jazz-era Halloween song in my collection.

Hollywood Land: The Calvanes – Horror Pictures

Now in this case the time period is a little off, but as a song celebrating classic monster movies as a phenomenon, it was pretty much a gimme. Sure, I could have picked a famous theme from an individual Halloween movie, but instead I chose to go for a song where movies were the theme. It's the same as the difference between a single-IP land and a more flexible one.

Cars Land: Jan & Dean – Dead Man's Curve

I really thought I would have more to pick from. Halloween is a big part of culture, cars are a big part of culture...there should be entire albums of spooky car songs. The closest thing I found was this surf-rock hit about a horrific car accident on a notorious stretch of Sunset Boulevard. But it is used in the Cars Land Halloween music loop, so there we are.

Pacific Wharf: Bart & the Bedazzled – Halloween By the Sea

I wanted to fit at least one contemporary song into this project. Pacific Wharf doesn't really have a well-established musical palette—it often goes for a “world music fusion” vibe, but not consistently enough that people are really aware of it. There's nothing international about this song, but it's nice and mellow, it name-checks both Halloween and the ocean, and it's by a San Francisco-based group.

Pixar Pier: M. Ryan Taylor – Halloween Carnival

I had to hunt around for this one. The haunted carnival is a Halloween staple, but it's so often pushed toward pure gruesomeness by people who think cruel irony is the first and last word in cleverness.** Consequently, much of the music written for this concept is geared toward being genuinely disturbing and unpleasant.

This song, on the other hand, is pretty family-friendly, naming all sorts of Halloween monsters and spooks but veering away from actual horror. The creepy creatures are present at the carnival in this song, but there is no cause for alarm, no expectation that they will hurt you.

Grizzly Peak: “Weird Al” Yankovic – Nature Trail to Hell

Okay, so the title alone makes it unsuitable for inclusion in a Disney theme park, and the lyrics actually reference Christmas, but it was the only “spooky” song I could find that was actually about people camping in the woods. Plus, it's funny. Who doesn't like funny?

For an extra giggle, find the backmasked audio in the bridge and reverse it for a secret Satanic message!

Grizzly Peak Airfield: Rosemary Clooney – Wobblin' Goblin

I don't normally treat Grizzly Peak Airfield separately from the rest of Grizzly Peak in these kinds of writeups, but this song was too good to pass up. It's from the right general era and it's a Halloween song about air travel. If Grizzly Peak Airfield did have its own Halloween music loop, I am dead certain it would be included.

 

Stay tuned next week, when I do this for all four parks in Walt Disney World!

Nah, just kidding, I'm gonna review Monsters After Dark.

* It's so old that it was recorded before the Great Apostrophe Shortage of 1913!

** It's the same mindset that produces the concept of killer toys—this thing is supposed to be fun for children, but it's actually EVIL and DEADLY! Are you not amazed by the literary device???