She’s a good girl, crazy ’bout Elvis

Posted on by brucehhackett

In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s — and in the decades since as well — pop music songwriters occasionally got a kick out of writing songs with references to other musical artists in their lyrics, delighting their listeners with sometimes thinly veiled, sometimes overt mentions of well-known colleagues in the rock/pop arena.

When folk music started morphing into folk rock in the mid-’60s, folk artists like Peter, Paul and Mary found themselves waning somewhat in popularity.  The solution:  Paul Stookey collaborated with songwriters James Mason and Dave Dixon to write “I Dig Rock and Roll Music,” a whimsical tune that name-dropped several of the rising (and established) stars of the new genre, and the result was a comeback #9 hit for the trio:  “I dig The Mamas and The Papas at the Beat, Sunset Strip in L.A., they’ve got a good thing going when the words don’t get in the way…”  “I dig Donovan kind of in a dreamed out, tripped out way, his crystal images, hey, they tell you ’bout a brighter day…  And when The Beatles tell you they’ve got a word ‘love’ to sell you, they mean exactly what they say…”

Similarly, R&B singer Arthur Conley teamed up with Otis Redding in 1967 to rework the old Sam Cooke song “Yeah Man” with new lyrics that called out several of the hot soul singers of that period.  The result, “Sweet Soul Music,” was a #2 hit on the pop charts and a Top Ten hit in Europe:  “Spotlight on Lou Rawls, y’all… Spotlight on Sam & Dave, y’all… Spotlight on Wilson Pickett, now…  Spotlight on Otis Redding, now… Spotlight on James Brown, y’all, he’s the king of them all, y’all…”

The musical fraternity of artists from the American South have supported each other throughout their careers, perhaps never as overtly as on The Charlie Daniels Band’s 1975 anthem “The South’s Gonna Do It,” which references no less than eight groups from that region:   “Well, the train to Grinder’s Switch is runnin’ right on time, and them (Marshall) Tucker boys are cookin’ down in Caroline, people down in Florida can’t be still when ol’ Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s pickin’ down in Jacksonville, people down in Georgia come from near and far to hear Richard Betts pickin’ on that red guitar…  Elvin Bishop sittin’ on a bale of hay, he ain’t good lookin’, but he sure can play, and there’s ZZ Top, and you can’t forget that old brother (Wet) Willie‘s gettin’ soakin’ wet, and all the good people down in Tennessee are diggin’ Barefoot Jerry and C.D.B...”

The Mamas and The Papas chief songwriter John Phillips wrote the 1966 autobiographical song “Creeque Alley” that told the background story of how he, Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot all used to hang out (and perform) with artists who later went on to greater fame in other bands.  Six verses of lyrics dreminisce about the days when they sang in Greenwich Village clubs and eventually worked their way to Los Angeles:  “(John) Sebastian and Zal (Yanovsky) formed the (Lovin’) Spoonful, Michelle, John, and Denny gettin’ very tuneful, (Roger) McGuinn and (Barry) McGuire just a-catchin’ fire in L.A., you know where that’s at…”

In “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” Billy Joel’s #1 hit from 1989, he assembled a virtual grocery list of celebrities and events that marked the years from roughly 1950 to the late 1980s.  He didn’t comment on them, he just rattled them off, like a CNN feed line across the bottom of the TV screen.  A few of these were fellow musicians:  “Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland…”  “Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, Mafia…”  “Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo…”  “Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion…”

“American Pie,” one of the biggest hits of 1971-72, famously chronicles the development of rock and roll from its mid-’50s infancy through the end of the ’60s.  Most of McLean’s lyrics use code words to identify the artists he’s singling out — “the jester” (Bob Dylan), “the king” (Elvis Presley), “the players” (The Rolling Stones) and “the marching band” (The Beatles).  Perhaps most easily identifiable was his allusion to Mick Jagger in the phrase “Jack Flash sat on a candlestick,” and the reference to The Byrds and their hit single in this line:  “Helter skelter in the summer swelter, the birds flew off to the fallout shelter, eight miles high and falling fast…”

By the mid-’70s, rock music had already lost several of its stars to untimely deaths, so the time was ripe for a song like “Rock ‘n Roll Heaven,” which calls out the names and hits of four fallen stars.  Just before  The Righteous Brothers recorded it, songwriters Alan O’Day and Johnny Stevenson added a final verse to include two additional deaths, and the song ended up a #3 hit in the summer of 1974:  “Jimi (Hendrix) gave us rainbows, and Janis (Joplin) took a piece of our hearts, and Otis (Redding) brought us all to the dock of a bay., sing a song to light my fire, remember Jim (Morrison) that way…”  “Remember bad bad Leroy Brown, hey, Jimmy (Croce) touched us with that song, time won’t change a friend we came to know, and Bobby (Darin) gave us ‘Mack the Knife,’ well, look out, he’s back in town….”

One of Stevie Wonder’s biggest hits of the ’70s was “Sir Duke,” which came from the multi-platinum LP “Songs in the Key of Life.”  Wonder was a huge fan of Big Band music and its legends, and the track’s lyrics pay homage to Duke Ellington and four more of his peers from that period:  “But here are some of music’s pioneers that time will not allow us to forget, for there’s (Count) Basie, (Glenn) Miller, Satchmo (Louis Armstrong), and the king of all, Sir Duke, and with a voice like Ella (Fitzgerald) ringing out, there’s no way the band can lose…”

The Beach Boys were on both ends of the name-dropping bandwagon.  In 1973 for their “Holland” LP, they wrote a suite called “California Saga,” in which they mentioned a stalwart of the outdoor festival scene: “Have you ever been to a festival, the Big Sur congregation, where Country Joe (McDonald) will do his show, and he’d sing about liberty…”  Soon after, Neil Young referenced California’s favorite sons in his song “Long May You Run,” recorded by The Stills-Young Band in 1976:  “Maybe The Beach Boys have got you now, with those waves singing ‘Caroline,’ (oh Caroline No)…”

Steely Dan name-checked two artists in two different songs in their catalog.  First, in the track “Everything You Did” from the 1976 LP “The Royal Scam,” the lyrics outline an argument between a warring husband and wife.  One of them offers a suggestion to keep others from eavesdropping on their conversation:  “Turn up The Eagles, the neighbors are listening…”  Then on “Gaucho” in 1980, the big hit single “Hey Nineteen” offers lyrics that illustrate the challenges of dating someone considerably younger who may not be familiar with your favorite artists:  “Hey Nineteen, that’s ‘Retha Franklin, she don’t remember the Queen of Soul, it’s hard times befallen The Soul Survivors, she thinks I’m crazy but I’m just growing old…”

“Free Fallin,” the opening track on Tom Petty’s 1989 solo LP “Full Moon Fever,” became his highest charting single, peaking at #7 in 1989. It offers a simple version of the tried-and-true theme of “good girl falls for bad boy and gets heart broken.” The lyrics focus on how bad boys cherish their independence, even though it means hurting the women who love them. In the opening stanza, Petty describes the girl who’s headed for heartache because she fell for the wrong guy: “Loves her mama, loves Jesus and America too, she’s a good girl, crazy ’bout Elvis, loves horses and her boyfriend too…”

The Dutch rock band Golden Earring has had a long history of success in their native Netherlands, but their big moment on US airwaves came with the 1973 Top Ten hit “Radar Love,” a classic tune about a guy who’s always on the road, and dying to get home to his lady.  To drive the point home, the lyrics refer to a long-ago romantic hit by a long-forgotten female vocalist who used to top the charts:  “The radio is playing some forgotten song, Brenda Lee‘s comin’ on strong…”

Soft rock crooner Stephen Bishop enjoyed success in the ’70s and ’80s with hits like “It Might Be You” (from the “Tootsie” film soundtrack) and “Save It For a Rainy Day,” but his biggest chart hit was the 1976 tearjerker “On and On,” which referenced Ol’ Blue Eyes himself in the second verse:  “Poor ol’ Jimmy sits alone in the moonlight, saw his woman kiss another man, so he takes a ladder, steals the stars from the sky, puts on (Frank) Sinatra and starts to cry…”

British rockers Deep Purple were scheduled to perform at a venue in Montreux, Switzerland, which was to be recorded for a live album, but at a concert held there the previous night, a reckless fan accidentally started a fire.  Deep Purple turned that story into their 1973 signature song, “Smoke on the Water,” and the lyrics called out the band that had been performing:  “We all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline to make records with a mobile, we didn’t have much time, Frank Zappa and the Mothers were at the best place around, but some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground…”

On Nirvana’s third (and, as it turned out, final) album “In Utero” in 1993, Kurt Cobain included the song “Pennyroyal Tea,” and I always assumed the title was a play on words about a songwriter earning a “penny royalty.” In fact, pennyroyal is a medicinal herbal abortive that has been used by women as a home remedy to end a pregnancy. “The song is about a person who’s beyond depressed,” Cobain said in 1993. “My therapy when I was depressed was to listen to Leonard Cohen music, which actually made it worse.” The lyrics state: “Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld so I can sigh eternally…” After Cobain’s suicide in 1994, Cohen said, “I’m sorry I never got the chance to speak to the young man. I might’ve been able to help him…or maybe not.”

Don Brewer, the drummer for Grand Funk Railroad,  came up with the song “We’re An American Band” and they got studio wizard Todd Rundgren to produce it, resulting in a #1 US hit that broadened the band’s audience.  The lyrics relate the ups and downs of life on the road, where their time spent offstage was sometimes spent in the company of other artists:  “Up all night with Freddie King, I got to tell you, poker’s his thing, booze and ladies keep me right as long as we can make it to the show tonight, we’re an American band…”

In 1972, British rockers Mott the Hoople were about to hang it up due to lack of commercial success.  They got a big lift from David Bowie, who penned “All the Young Dudes” for them to record, and it ended up becoming one of the anthems of the glam rock movement on both sides of the Atlantic.  Two references to other artists show up in the lyrics:  “Television man is crazy saying we’re juvenile delinquent wrecks, oh man, I need TV when I’ve got T. Rex…”  “And my brother’s back at home with his Beatles and his Stones, we never got off on that revolution stuff, what a drag, too many snags…”

Elton John’s lyricist Bernie Taupin finally got around to referencing another musician on Elton’s 1989 LP “Sleeping With the Past,” which contains songs meant to reflect the style of 1960s R&B.  On the Motown-inspired “Club at the End of the Street,” which leveled off at #28 on the U.S. singles chart, Taupin described the atmosphere you might find in smaller tucked-away venues:  “From the alleyways where the catwalks gently sway, you hear the sound of Otis (Redding) and the voice of Marvin Gaye, in this smoky room, there’s a jukebox plays all night, and we can dance real close beneath the pulse of a neon light…”

In the early ’70s, when Neil Young wrote a couple of songs (“Southern Man,” “Alabama”) taking the South to task for its racist history, Lynyrd Skynyrd took exception and wrote “Sweet Home Alabama” in defense of their homeland.  Their lyrics came right out and mentioned Young not once but three times in one verse:  “Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her, well, I heard ol’ Neil put her down, well, I hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern man don’t need him around anyhow…”

In 1983, for his underrated LP “Hearts and Bones,” Paul Simon wrote the song “The Late Great Johnny Ace,” which used the name of the often neglected ’50s R&B singer to talk about that awful night in 1980 when John Lennon was shot:  “On a cold December evening, I was walking through the Christmastide, when a stranger came up and asked me if I’d heard John Lennon had died, and the two of us went to this bar, and we stayed to close the place, and every song we sang was for the late great Johnny Ace, yeah yeah yeah…”

Back in 1980, when John Mellencamp was going by the name Johnny Cougar, he had his first chart success (#17) with “Ain’t Even Done With the Night,” his first attempt at writing a soul song.  The lyrics speak of the frustration and eager hormones involved in early romance, referencing one of the best singers from that genre:  “Well, our hearts beat like thunder, I don’t know why they don’t explode, you got your hands in my back pockets, and Sam Cooke‘s singin’ on the radio…”

“Thunder Road,” one of Bruce Springsteen’s most celebrated songs from his pivotal “Born to Run” album, tells the tale of a young man longing to break out of his dead-end existence and coax the target of his infatuation to join him on his journey of discovery.  He uses the name of a ’50s icon to push the point home:  “Roy Orbison singing for the lonely, hey, that’s me, and I want you only, don’t turn me home again, I just can’t face myself alone again…”

In 1972, Van Morrison boldly kicked off his “Saint Dominic’s Preview” LP with “Jackie Wilson Said (“I’m in Heaven When You Smile),” an overt reference to the energetic R&B singer (and his debut single, “Reet Petite” from 1957).  The lyrics use Wilson’s name to start the song, but the rest of it is really just a joyous love tune:  “Jackie Wilson said it was ‘Reet Petite,’ the kind of love you got knock me off my feet, let it all hang out, and you know I’m so wired up, don’t need no coffee in my cup, let it all hang out…”

This trend shows no signs of slowing down, either.  Barenaked Ladies had two songs on their 1992 debut LP called “Brian Wilson” and “Be My Yoko Ono.”  Then there’s Taylor Swift’s 2006 debut single “Tim McGraw,” followed not so coincidentally by Tim McGraw’s 2007 song “Kristofferson” and Eric Church with his 2011 country hit “Springsteen.”  Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera teamed up that same year with the #1 pop hit “Moves Like Jagger,” which focused on how the narrator claims he can mimic the famous singer’s stage presence:  “Look into my eyes and I’ll own you with them moves like (Mick) Jagger, I’ve got the moves like Jagger…”

Even Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, two of the most celebrated songwriters of the past half-century, have not been averse to mentioning another artist by name.  Mitchell’s wonderfully playful “Barangrill” from 1972’s “For the Roses” album cites one of pop music’s icons from the ’40s and ’50s: “The guy at the gas pump, he’s got a lot of soul, he sings ‘Merry Christmas’ for you just like Nat King Cole…”  Dylan’s 2006 track “Thunder on the Mountain” makes a blatant reference to a relatively new singer he admired:  “I was thinking about Alicia Keys, couldn’t keep from crying, when she was born in Hell’s Kitchen, I was living down the line, I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be, I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee…”

On 1968’s “The White Album,” John Lennon’s track “Yer Blues” made reference to a character from the 1965 Bob Dylan track “Ballad of a Thin Man” to describe his own depression: “The eagle picks my eye, the worm he licks my bone, /I feel so suicidal, just like Dylan‘s Mr. Jones, /Lonely, wanna die…” Then in 1970, in the song “God” from his solo studio LP “Plastic Ono Band,” Lennon mentioned both Dylan and Elvis Presley, and The Beatles themselves, as things in which he no longer had faith: “I don’t believe in Elvis, I don’t believe in Zimmerman, I don’t believe in Beatles…”

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There have even been bands and artists who have gone so far as to use another artist’s name as a song title: “Brian Wilson” by Bare Naked Ladies (“Dr. Landy, tell me you’re not just a pedagogue, ’cause right now I’m lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did…); “Tim McGraw” by Taylor Swift (“When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think of me…”); “Springsteen” by Eric Church (“Funny how a melody sounds like a memory, like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night, Springsteen…”); the disturbing “Don Henley Must Die” by Mojo Nixon (“He’s serious, pretentious, and I just don’t care, Don Henley must die!…”)

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I’m scared, lordy Lord, I’m shakin’, I’m petrified

Posted on by brucehhackett

Favorite holiday?

Many say Christmas, and with good reason. Others pick Thanksgiving, also a fine choice. Even the Fourth of July gets a nod from a few, and that makes sense as well.

But me? I’ve always loved Halloween. As the leaves turn, the temperatures dip and the sun keeps setting earlier in the day, I get a sense of foreboding that gives me goosebumps. I relish a good scare, whether it’s from negotiating my way through a haunted house or sitting through a marathon of really hair-raising horror movies.

Like other holidays, Halloween comes with its own soundtrack, but I don’t mean the tired, overplayed stuff like “The Monster Mash” or “Werewolves of London.” I’m talking about music that imparts a sense of unease and makes you want to glance repeatedly over your shoulder to be sure there’s no one about to do you harm.

I’ve gathered 15 haunting pieces of music from the classic rock era that should make your trick-or-treat season just a little bit more creepy. They’re all on a Spotify playlist at the end of this post, along with a handful of honorable mentions.

May the ghosts, goblins and monsters from your psyche come visit you this weekend!

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“‘Halloween‘ Theme,” John Carpenter, 1978

Every October, I dial up this horror classic starring a young Jamie Lee Curtis, and it never fails to give me the willies. I was astonished to learn very recently that the frightening soundtrack theme music was written by the movie’s director, John Carpenter. We used to use it every year for the haunted house we staged in our Atlanta neighborhood. It’s such a hypnotic piece, using a 5/4 beat, minor chords, piano and synthesizer to build a relentless heartbeat to what turned out to be the first in a long series of scary movies about the unkillable killer Michael Myers.

“‘Psycho‘ Prelude,” Bernard Herrmann, 1960

I still rank this Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece among my favorite films of all time (not just scary ones), and part of the reason it retains its effectiveness is Herrmann’s incredible score. He uses staccato violins almost exclusively to build tension as he torments the audience while star Janet Leigh struggles with moral issues, and then co-star Tony Perkins as Norman Bates wrestles his inner demons. It might be the most terrifying soundtrack ever created. This piece and two others from “Psycho” were also a regular part of our haunted house music accompaniment.

“Season of the Witch,” Donovan, 1966

It’s hard to decide which version of this classic song grabs me more: Donovan’s five-minute original or the 10-minute track by Al Kooper, Stephen Stills and Co. on the legendary 1968 “Super Session” LP. Donovan, the British mystical folkie responsible for “Sunshine Superman” and other flower-garden reflections of the mid-to-late ’60s, wrote it as a somewhat creepy ode to October. Two years later, Kooper & Stills recorded a remarkable jam on Donovan’s chords that became something else entirely, also haunting and intriguing in its own way. “When I look out my window, so many sights to see, and when I look in my window, so many different people to be, and it’s strange, so strange…”

“Black Magic Woman,” Santana, 1970

Written by the great blues guitarist Peter Green and released as a single with his band Fleetwood Mac back in 1968, this song became a huge #4 hit for Carlos Santana and his band in 1970, from “Abraxas.”   It was combined in a medley with the 1966 track “Gypsy Queen,” and utilised congas, timbales and Latin polyrhythms to give the whole thing a distinct voodoo feel: “Got your spell on me baby, yes, you got your spell on me baby, you’re turning my heart into stone, I need you so bad, magic woman, I can’t leave you alone…”

“Spooky,” Classics IV, 1968

Written in 1967 as an instrumental featuring the saxophone riffs of Mike Shapiro, “Spooky” stalled at #57, but the next year, Mike Hirsch added lyrics about “a spooky little girl like you,” and the Classics IV took that version to #3.   James Cobb of the Classics IV went on to form The Atlanta Rhythm Section in the ’70s, and their re-recorded rendition in 1979 reached #17 on the charts.  Not really a very spooky tune at all, but still appropriate lyrically:  “Just like a ghost, you’ve been haunting my dreams, so now I know you’re not what you seem, love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you…”

“Witchcraft,” Frank Sinatra, 1957

Carolyn Leigh was a successful lyricist for Broadway shows and films throughout the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. Among her most popular efforts was her collaboration with composer Cy Coleman on “Witchcraft,” the 1957 song made famous by Frank Sinatra. It reached #6 that year on US pop charts and was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the very first Grammy Awards. Its lighthearted tempo and melody may not be exactly right for Halloween, but the words certainly send a few chills up the spine: “Those fingers in my hair, that sly ‘come hither’ stare that strips my conscience bare, /It’s witchcraft, /And I’ve got no defense for it, the heat is too intense for it, /What good would common sense for it do? /’Cause it’s witchcraft, wicked witchcraft…”

“Thriller,” Michael Jackson, 1982

Jackson’s trailblazing 13-minute music video of his title track “Thriller” broke new ground as a short story, fully choreographed with gory zombie makeup, and the first to be preserved in the National Film Registry…and for the finale, horror movie legend Vincent Price recites the spoken section that ends with his maniacal laugh. It has become a Halloween classic, and rightly so:  “It’s close to midnight, and something evil’s lurking in the dark, under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart, you try to scream, but terror takes the sound before you make it, you start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes, you’re paralyzed…”

“Black Sabbath,” Black Sabbath, 1970

Death metal, Goth, Satanic rock — the bands who revel in these genres have plenty of disturbing, macabre lyrics that could certainly be deserving of space on a Halloween setlist, but frankly, I don’t claim to know much about them.  I do, however, recall the spooky chill that made me shudder the first time I heard the song “Black Sabbath,” the leadoff track from Black Sabbath’s debut LP (and check out that creepy album cover).  An ominous tolling bell, a rainstorm with distant thunder, then huge power chords in a minor key, and Ozzy Osbourne demanding to know, “What is this that stands before me?”  Brrrrr. If this isn’t appropriate Halloween music, I don’t know what is.

“Too Much Blood,” The Rolling Stones, 1983

Mick Jagger gets the lion’s share of songwriting credit for this strangely compelling dance track from The Stones’ 1983 LP “Undercover” that protests gratuitous violence in 1980s films even while it’s knee-deep in graphic images about that same violence.  Sparked by a lurid murder in Paris that year involving dismemberment and cannibalism, the song’s lyrics devolved into rap in the middle third, specifically mentioning the 1974 film “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and bemoaning, “I can feel it everywhere, feel it up above, feel the tension in the air, there’s too much blood, yeah, too much blood…”

“Don’t Fear the Reaper,” Blue Oyster Cult, 1976

Out of Long Island, New York, in 1971 came Blue Oyster Cult, one of the stalwart hard rock bands of its era.  BOC guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser wrote this 1976 hit single in his early 20s, imagining an early death for himself.  “I wasn’t suicidal,” he said, “just thinking cosmically about eternal love and premature death.”  Seems spooky enough to me to be perfect for a Halloween mix… “Then the door was opened and the wind appeared, the candles blew and then disappeared, the curtains flew and then he appeared, saying, ‘don’t be afraid, come on baby, don’t fear the reaper’…”

“D.O.A.,” Bloodrock, 1971

The two-note drone of a European emergency siren is the basic hook on which this gruesome song hangs, and embodies that feeling of dread you might feel in a dark alley or as you approach a haunted house.  The lyrics, which caused the song to be censored in some markets, graphically describe the thoughts of a plane crash survivor as he is brought into a hospital:  “I try to move my arm and there’s no feeling, and when I look, I see there’s nothing there…Life is flowing out my body, pain is flowing out with my blood, the sheets are red and moist where I’m lying, God in heaven, teach me how to die…”

“Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps),” David Bowie, 1980

Bowie had written an early version of this song called “Running Scared” in 1975, and recorded a demo, but ultimately put it aside until compiling tracks for his 1980 LP that he intended to be more commercial than the so-called “Berlin Trilogy” albums that preceded it. “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” is a punky, heavily distorted track featuring Robert Fripp’s harsh guitar, and Bowie so loved the way it turned out that he chose to make it the album’s title track. The eerie lyrics convey the dysfunction behind a strange relationship: “When I looked in her eyes, they were blue, but nobody home, /Well, she could’ve been a killer if she didn’t walk the way she do, /She opened strange doors that we’d never close again…”

“Devil Woman,” Cliff Richard, 1976

British rock ‘n’ roll legend Richard ruled the UK airwaves in the pre-Beatles years (1957-1962) and is one of the most successful recording artists of all time, but he rarely made a dent in the US charts. In 1976, after he had gone through a softening phase, dabbling in gospel and Christian music, he found himself with a big hit in “Devil Woman,” which reached #6 in the US and sparked four more Top 20 hits here in the late ’70s. The lyrics tell the tale of a man jinxed from an encounter with a stray cat with evil eyes, and his discovery that the psychic whose help he sought to break the spell turned out to be the one responsible for the curse in the first place.

“I Put a Spell on You,” Nina Simone, 1965

Written and originally recorded by “Screamin'” Jay Hawkins in 1956, “I Put a Spell on You” has been covered by more than a hundred different artists, from Creedence and Jeff Beck to Annie Lennox and Bryan Ferry. In 1965, blues/jazz singer Nina Simone recorded an amazing rendition that reached #23 on the R&B charts here and also charted well in England. Hawkins, a blues singer, had established himself in the rock ‘n’ roll pantheon by turning the song into a ghoulish stage centerpiece, rising from a coffin amidst smoke and dry ice to deliver a frightful screaming vocal that gave him his nickname.

“‘The X-Files‘ Theme,” Mark Snow, 1993

Martin Fulterman, known professionally as Mark Snow, has written theme music and incidental score parts for several hundred film and TV series since his first project, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” in 1976. Other series include “Hart to Hart,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Vega$” and “Cagney and Lacey.” At first, Snow was hesitant to work on “The X-Files” because he thought creator Chris Carter and his staff were “kind of weird.” That weirdness is reflected in the theme he ended up composing, which utilized electronic whistling and spooky piano scales that complemented the often macabre story lines.

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Honorable mention:

“Welcome to my Nightmare,” Alice Cooper, 1975; “Yes, I’m a Witch,” Yoko Ono, 1974/2007; “Evil Woman,” Electric Light Orchestra, 1975; “Cemetery Gates,” The Smiths, 1986; “Witchy Woman,” The Eagles, 1972; “Halloween,” The Misfits, 1981; “Hells Bells,” AC/DC, 1980.

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