It’s likely that most of this year’s Halloween parties took place over the weekend. The main attraction now is when numerous kids come around for trick or treat, although my wife and I usually only get around 20 at our house. Here’s a Halloween song from the BHT vault that offers another opportunity to party. If you dare.
Singer-songwriter Danny Elfman has been blending music, theatre, and bizarre humor for so long it’s easy to imagine him freaking out his parents while performing in his playpen. With a maniacal grin. “Don’t run away, it’s only me.” His 1980s band Oingo Boingo actually morphed from a popular Los Angeles theatre troupe, and Elfman currently makes bundles of cash composing film soundtracks.
I’ve often posted his gruesomely clever “This Is Halloween” from Nightmare Before Christmas as part of my annual October spooky music celebration. Oingo Boingo’s 1985 single “Dead Man’s Party” follows the same pattern of setting disturbing subject matter to an irresistible melody and making us laugh. An invitation figures prominently in Elfman’s lyrics, as we’re introduced to someone who believes lugging around a corpse is the epitome of being well dressed.
Although the protagonist complains of having nowhere to go, eventually, a chauffeur arrives and whisks him off to “a party where no one’s still alive.” There’s no ongoing story here, just a series of strange events and Elfman’s not-so-reassuring advice of “Don’t be afraid of what you can’t see.” But his distinctive vocals and the playful drums, guitars, and horns keep everyone too busy dancing to worry about what’s really going on.
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