Day 4: Sounds of Halloween

Yesterday morning started out much the same as any other morning. Wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed, leave the house, get in the car and go to work, except for the fact that as I was pulling out of the driveway I turned on the radio and almost ran over my front lawn. The very first song to play was Thriller by Michael Jackson and it is one of my October jams! I squealed  loudly in excitement and hit the brakes. I cranked the radio to 11 and started groovin'. Michael Jackson isn’t one of my favorites, and the video for this particular song gives me both the heebies and the jeebies, but there is something about Thriller that really gets my October/Halloween vibe….vibrating.

I have loved the song Thriller since I first heard it. It came out in 1983 but that wasn’t the version I fell in love with. My dear mother bought me a Halloween mix-tape from Hallmark called “Sounds of Halloween” which had a dude dressed as Dracula on the front looking like he was either about to beat-box or he really was a secret service agent in disguise who was checking his earpiece and unsuspectingly got his picture taken. Either way, it is all sorts of goofy and I love it. In the town I grew up in, the Hallmark store was in a strip mall a few doors down from Payless which in turn was a few doors down from Safeway. Payless was a treasure trove of decoration bliss and was where I first fell in love with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but that is a story for another day. I don’t remember why mom was in Hallmark that day, but she came back with the tape and said she thought I would like it. Boy was she ever right. I’m still listening to it 30 some odd years later.

On one side of the tape is spooky Halloween sounds like witches cackling and cat people hissing, chains clanking and monsters roaring, it's both amazing and wonderful. On the other side is a bunch of famous Halloween songs sung by knock off bands. The third song is Thriller and I actually prefer it to the Michael Jackson version. If I could have the knock off with Vincent Price doing the monologue it would be the perfect song. 

Anyway, little 6 year old me was in love. I popped that mix-tape into my Care Bear cassette player, hooked it to the handlebars of my tricycle and motored around the neighborhood with it playing on repeat. Well, it played and when the song was over I hit rewind and played it again, and again, and again. I got really good at knowing just how long to hold the rewind button down before it went too far back into Ghostbusters (which is another favorite, but it is no Thriller). You really haven’t lived until you have seen a little girl with pig tails flying by on her tricycle singing about “grisly ghouls from every tomb who are closing in to seal your doom.”

But back to present day, I really got to moving and grooving to Thriller out on the open road and I got some chuckles from other motorists. The monologue is my favorite part of the song and I love the way Vincent Price pronounces the words. He has such amazing rounded tones and perfect diction. Until I looked up the lyrics a few years back, I never knew that the word “y’all’s” was even in his speech. I heard another alternative version of the song and heard them say that and I got mad because they were changing words and not doing it right. Imagine my surprise when I saw y’all in the original lyrics and then heard Vincent say it. I had somehow glossed over that fact. Now I get such a huge kick out of such a proper gentleman pronouncing dire tidings and using y’all’s. Ah it's the things that amuse me.

Unfortunately the radio station cut off Vincent’s laugh at the end which made me sad cuz I can cackle with the best of them, but I was pretty thrilled (no pun intended) that my morning started off so great. It got even better when I left for work at the end of the day. The very first song that came on the radio when I started up the car was Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” which is another favorite October tune. Sometimes you just need to howl and this song gives you the perfect excuse. The lyrics are absurd (how exactly does someone “do” a werewolf of London), some disturbing (if involves a poor little old lady who doesn’t come to the best end) and some pretty cool(a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vick’s and his hair was perfect), but it’s the howling that I really enjoy.

My mother bless her heart, knew how much I loved my Halloween mix tape, so a about a decade or so ago, she bought me a Kidz Bop CD of Halloween songs, once again, from…..Hallmark. She was so pleased. I was pretty excited too. I put it on and the first song was tiny kids singing Werewolves of London and it creeped me out so bad I immediately took it out of the CD player, put it in the case and Frisbeed it into the garbage. It was like the Children of the Corn were singing me a lullaby and it was all sorts of awful. I never told mom what happened to the disc. I just made noncommittal happy noises when she asked how I liked it, then went right back to playing my mix-tape. Ahhhh.

Ok, I just paused in my writing to watch all 13 minutes of the Thriller video again. You know, it has always bugged me, what exactly is a thriller? Is he talking about a movie? Cuz I’m pretty sure that is what he means, but it’s kinda unclear. Six year old me figured thriller was the name a monster. Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, Thriller, it makes sense....to a six year old. If there can be a Sharknado there can be a Thriller. And what on earth is Michael supposed to be in that video anyway? I get the zombie. He actually makes a super duper zombie. He has weird Gumby stick legs that move independent of his body. It is kinda cool, but what is his other monster? I’m pretty sure it is supposed to be a werewolf, but to me he looks like a werebunny or werecat. He has freakishly long whiskers and ears. It’s just weird. And coordinated dancing zombies are my favorite. I am totally certain that I could outrun them. And if they got too close all I’d have to do is play some sweet tunes and they would get distracted. I’d survive that kind of “thriller” no problem.

Ahh, two of my favorite October songs to bookend my day. What a treat indeed, and it isn’t even the 31^st yet.