Pumpkin Faces in the Night: 5 Songs for Halloween
This week's songs are from Flock of Dimes, Magic Tuber Stringband, Matthew Sweet, Rosalía, and Diarrhea Planet
This is it folks. The end of Halloween Month.
Remember: only three pieces of candy before dinner. No, we won’t count anything you’ve already eaten. Find the kid who likes Whoppers and trade away as many as you can. Separate the chocolate from the chewy candies; nobody likes a Snickers that tastes like Skittles. Throw out anything with an open wrapper, and don’t forget to check those candy apples for razor blades.
Here are 5 songs with Halloween-adjacent titles.
“I’m at this place where I have less to prove about who I am and what I’m about and what I’m capable of. And for that reason, it felt like a door was opened to this other world that I had consciously or unconsciously avoided. I fixated on acoustic instruments in the context of a world that is very of the moment. There’s a lot of humanity and imperfection in an acoustic instrument, it’s so temperamental. And of course, the context is shifting, right? When I was starting out, I was very pulled to these different technologies, but now I feel like my relationship to technology is more one of fear and trepidation, and in many ways, especially with things like AI beginning to take over the world, I intuitively felt that it was the most radical thing that I could do right now at this moment, to lean into things that are very human.” - Jenn Wasner
Flock of Dimes - “Afraid”
I could listen to Jenn Wasner sing website Terms & Conditions documentation. Her voice glides and whisps in winding melodies, and can grab hold of your attention with a slower, calmer pace the same way Nick Drake does. Hyperactive types excepted, her solo work as Flock of Dimes suits and enhances nearly any mood you might find yourself in. It’s deep, rich, and highly listenable. Keep Me in the Dark, released earlier this month, is like a cup of coffee and a good book on a slow morning. It doesn’t ask anything of you but to sit with it for a while. A well-timed release for Fall. “Afraid,” the lead track, is emblematic of that mood. It’s warm and slow-going. Wasner’s vocals following winding paths into a few repetitive hooks more than get pinned into a defining melody. That said, the lyrics are assured and defiant.
“I did not enter this world afraid
And I refuse to leave it that way
I did not enter this world afraid
And I refuse to leave it”
“My thinking is that I should write with little effort and let it flow out when I’m in the right mood, that’s when the best stuff comes. I’ve found that by taking that approach and not worrying about it, stuff just kind of pops out.” - Matthew Sweet
Matthew Sweet - “Trick”
As Obi-Wan Kenobi said, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” Maybe that’s why “Sometimes” makes for such a great word to use in pop songs? “Sometimes” is the best way to ensure your sentiments are going to be relevant to most people at some point. The Great Qualifier.
In “Trick” it’s the punch at the top of a bright chorus about how perception can be a fickle thing. Careers—and life—can be fickle as well. The song is off of 2017’s Tomorrow Forever, nearly a quarter century past Sweet’s commercial peak. Since it’s release, he’s dealt with a number of health setbacks, including a 2024 stroke. The album came about after Sweet moved from LA back to his home state of Nebraska. Years in the making, he had upwards of 38 recorded songs to pick from, and “Trick” is a top-of-the-list choice. It’s an absolutely fantastic power pop song. Choppy and sharp verses followed by the release of a bright chorus. It’s a song I seem to find myself turning up the volume when it comes on, and a hard one not to have in your head for a day or two afterwards.
“You have this inter generational transmission. It’s been like this forever…[Back during the 1970s folk revival], that was kind of when a lot of young people started going to try to record and play with source fiddlers. And a lot of them were from cities, you know. But I think that trend really never died. And I don’t really foresee it dying because there continue to be weird young kids that really get into this music.” - Evan Morgan
Magic Tuber Stringband - “Trumpet of the Dead”
There’s something about Fall weather and acoustic instruments. We’ll get into this a bit more in the coming weeks, but here is case in point. Guitarist Evan Morgan and fiddle player Courtney Werner met in Durham, North Carolina where they got interested in “old time” music, Appalachian folk, and American fingerstyle guitar. I first heard them last month when they were playing the Sound & Gravity festival during a gap between a few other acts. Based on their name and the few tracks I’d listened to, I expected more than a duo. Their playing filled the relatively small room with warmth. Their albums should come packaged with a thick cardigan and a hot toddy kit. Here with “Trumpet the Dead,” the lead track on 2023’s Tarantism, it’s less a dirge or lament, and more of a celebration of life akin to Day of the Dead; it’s a music of reunions.
“I think of any genre as a snow globe—you don’t admire it for its stillness. You have to shake it up and see how it explodes.” - Rosalía
Rosalía - “Candy”
After centuries of nomadic living in India, Persia, the Balkans, Turkey, Iraq, Italy, and Greece, the Roma people found that no matter where they ended up, the most doors were open to them if they said they were from Egypt. Hence, the “Gypsy” label. Known for being particularly adept musicians (among other talents), they would absorb local traditions, and often add embellishments that would ultimately reshape the form. Django Reinhardt famously connected the dots between France’s musette style and Dixieland jazz, creating manouche, aka “Gypsy Jazz”. During the Crusades, the Moors and Sephardic Jews in Southern Spain were cast out, opening the region for Roma to move in from neighboring France. In Andalucía, Roma musicality merged with Spanish folk music, a deeply passionate temperament, and a healthy resistance to modernity, which is how Flamenco originated.
Flamenco is focused on song forms (palos), rather than songs. Singers create their own unique metric structure, a singular voice. They blend standard phrases and pieces of music and classic stories, creating their own interpretations while in dialogue with existing works. It’s essentially what Led Zeppelin did with American Blues and British Folk, or what Bob Dylan does with pretty much everything. Elements of Flamenco melodies, stories, and rhythms can be traced (along with Roma migrations) back into Greece, Africa, and of course Spanish folk tales. Complex rhythms with accent changes run across a multi measure cycle (compás), which have similar structures in Indian music. A characteristic of Flamenco connoisseurs look for is “duende” (which translates to “goblin” or “disembodied spirit”), what we would call “soul.” It’s used to describe a performance that brings about a transcendence that the Spanish describe as akin to approaching death.
Rosalía came up through New Flamenco; her first album is very much of the genre (check out “Te Venero”). Her second, El Mal Querer (“Pienso en tu Mira”), merged Flamenco with contemporary urban pop. And her third, Motomami, explored reggaeton, Caribbean rhythms, and dance music.
How much of that did I know when I was wondering “What is this?” while watching Rosalía on SNL a few years ago? Almost none.
But it’s been a fascinating experience piecing all of that together since. I’ve since gone to back to her music with fresh ears and an enlightened perspective.
Take what we all now know about Flamenco: in “Candy” Rosalía borrows the melody from dubstep artist Burial’s “Archangel,” and the reggaeton beat from Plan B’s own song called “Candy” (which is referenced in the lyrics), and offers lyrics of her own about a failed relationship and the heartbreak she experienced. One doesn’t have to speak Spanish to understand what she’s singing about; her voice and the melody have the “duende.” As for the sonic elements, there isn’t much: vocals, a reggaeton beat, and what feels like half of world history up until now.
“The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.” - Lester Bangs
Diarrhea Planet - “Skeleton Head”
A very fast way to have someone question any respect they might have for you is to tell them you’re about to go see a band called Diarrhea Planet. A very fast way to gain it all back and then some is to bring them with you. Easily one of the most fun live music experiences I’ve had was seeing them rip it up at a street festival. Going from memory, they had no fewer than 4 guitar players on stage, one of which was exclusively doing Van Halen-esque fretboard tapping.
Colossally stupid? Yes.
Incredibly fun and, dare I say, life-affirming? Also, yes.
The name came about when the band first got together at Belmont University. Member Jordan Smith described it as an overly serious music school focused more on building careers within the industry in Nashville—where rigid, programmatic thinking thrives. The name was intended to be obnoxious and awful, and immature as a middle finger to their stuffy environment. What could be worse than a “Diarrhea Planet”?
“The original recordings I had made were under the name The Don Knotts Bowel Movement.” - Jordan Smith
Aside from a few one-off reunion shows, the band called it quits in 2018 soon after opening for Jason Isbell at the Ryman Auditorium. Fittingly, they were joined on stage by Isbell and Sturgill Simpson—two other gentleman with a distaste for the industry brain rot of Nashville.
“Skeleton Head,” with its title, and mention of voices and ghosts, isn’t about Halloween. It’s about depression, insomnia, and running out of things to talk about with the voices in your head. The band starts with a crawl and builds towards a fist-pumping, cathartic anthem. Like I said, this is life-affirming stuff.
Happy Halloween.
Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs: