Here at Kveller, we’ve already established that a lot of your favorite Christmas songs were written by Jews. But did you know that a lot of the best Halloween songs were written by Jewish musicians too?
To be fair, unlike Christmas music, which is its own thriving industry, Halloween songs aren’t usually conceived as such (though a few songs on this list were conceived as Halloween songs, and one of them was actually from a Halloween album fashioned in the style of a Christmas one). They’re just really spooky songs that have become popular during Halloween seasons — TV themes, songs about monsters and mythical creatures, and even songs about wanting candy.
Here are some of the most popular spooky season songs written by incredible Jewish writers and composers, and some fun (and spooky!) facts behind them:
1. The Addams Family Theme:
The original and iconic “The Addams Family” theme written in 1964 for the original TV series about the spooky family created by illustrator Charles Addams is a truly iconic Halloween tune, still just as delightful and fresh feeling as it was back then, with its use of the harpsichord and the fun accents of “neat” and “petite” from Ted Cassidy, the actor who played Lurch in that original show. It is said that Addams loved the tune more than he ever did the series, and it has been carried, in some variation into every Addams family adaptations made since. The man behind the theme song is composer Vic Mizzy, the son of Jewish immigrants who grew up in New York, known for his movie and TV scores. Mizzy said writing the song was easy.
“I sat down; I went ‘buh-buh-buh-bump (snap snap), buh-buh-buh-bump,” he recounted in 2008. “That’s why I’m living in Bel-Air: Two finger snaps, and you live in Bel-Air.”
2. “Spooky Scary Skeletons” by Andrew Gold:
Over the past few years, “Spooky Scary Skeletons” by Andrew Gold, who passed away in 2011, has become a yearly social media viral hit on TikTok and Instagram. The creepy song about spooky scary skeletons who send shivers down your spine is also on repeat in my family’s home every Halloween season.
Gold was the son of Ernest Gold, the Oscar winning composer behind the soundtrack of “Exodus,” and a Jewish immigrant from Austria. “Spooky Scary Skeletons” is just one track from his excellent Halloween album, “Haloween Howls,” which features vocals from his daughters, delightful original Halloween songs that all deserve to become as iconic as “Spooky Scary Skeletons” and covers of classics like the aforementioned Addams Family theme and “Monster Mash.”
“He wrote it because he felt like there were so many Christmas albums but Halloween was just as important a holiday and fun for kids,” his daughter Victoria recalled on TikTok in 2021. Gold also wrote “Final Frontier,” also known as the “Mad About You” theme song and “Thank You For Being a Friend,” made iconic by “Golden Girls.”
3. “Materia Primoris” by Mark Snow, AKA “The X-Files” Theme:
To me, there isn’t a better creepy song than “Materia Primoris.” It makes me instantly ready to accept that creepy stuff is going to happen. For prolific composer Mark Snow, born Martin Fulterman in Brooklyn, the song was just another of many pilot music assignments. He was approached by the creator of the show, Chris Carter, who told him that he was looking for something that “boy scouts could hum at the campfire, as a scary song… You know, something akin to ‘The Twilight Zone.'” Carter also urged Snow to take inspiration from the song “How Soon Is Now” by The Smiths. But it was an accidental hit of his elbow against the keyboard that created an echo effect that he liked, and an old whistling sample that really helped the song take shape. His wife Glynn helped “beef up” that old sample with her own whistling.
Ultimately, the theme helped make “X Files” a show that gives you that creepy crawly feeling of something disconcerting about to happen, as it accompanied Mulder and Skully through the show’s many seasons and two movies. Snow told NPR that working on the show was “just pure magic.”
4. “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” from the “30 Rock” soundtrack:
“Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” was originally conceived as a fun but insignificant joke for an episode of the hit SNL parody show “30 Rock,” as a novelty song and a get-rich quick scheme from Tracy Jodan (Tracy Morgan). The only Jewish writer on the track, Tami Sagher, contributed the brilliant lyric “boys becoming men, men becoming wolves.” When the showrunners saw that the snippet was a huge streaming hit on YouTube, they decided to expand it into a full song, and Sagher was charged with writing many of the lyrics, along with actor and musician Donald Glover. The comedy writer, who has also worked on “How I Met Your Mother,” “Shrill” and “Inside Amy Schumer,” said she did a lot of Wikipedia-ing to achieve the songs’ Jewish specificities and made it unhinged enough to fit Morgan’s character. It has since become a huge Halloween hit, and a surprisingly fun song to play during a party for the Jewish rite of passage — Sagher said the song even played at her own niece’s bat mitzvah.
5. “This Is Halloween” from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”
You’d be hard-pressed to write a list about scary soundtrack music without mentioning Jewish composer Danny Elfman, who has worked on all of Tim Burton’s biggest hits, from “Beetlejuice” (and sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”) to “Edward Scissorhands.” Every Halloween, his soundtrack for the delightful musical animated film “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” about Jack Skellington, a resident of Halloweentown who becomes obsessed with Christmas, is played all over. The entire soundtrack is brilliant, but it’s the song “This Is Halloween,” sang by the town residents, that has become especially memorable.
Writing about Eflman has become a bit complicated. In the past year, two sexual misconduct allegations against Elfman were made public, allegations which his lawyer have denied. Elfman was recently sued for defamation by one of his accusers, composer Nomi Abadi, and has filed a motion to strike the suit.
6. “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon
This 1978 song by Warren Zevon, the son of a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant, a bookie who worked with LA crime boss Mickey Cohen and was even the best man at his first wedding, was first conceived almost in jest. Zevon and his bandmates, LeRoy P. Marinell and Waddy Wachtel, wrote the lyrics together, inspired by the 1935 movie “Werewolf of London.” But it inadvertently became Zevon’s best-known hit, one that was even covered by the Grateful Dead and Adam Sandler.
In a “Larry Sanders Show” appearance, Zevon told the host that he was sick of always playing the hit. But in truth, he wasn’t unhappy at the success of what he called a “dumb song for smart people.”
“I don’t know why that became such a hit. We didn’t think it was suitable to be played on the radio. It didn’t become an albatross. It’s better that I bring something to mind than nothing,” Zevon, who passed away in 2003, shared in an interview. “There are times when I prefer that it was ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, but I don’t think bad about the song. I still think it’s funny.” To be fair, a song that starts with “I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand” can’t be anything but brilliant.
7. “I Want Candy” by the Strangeloves
OK, so this isn’t a spooky scary song at all, but it is about one of the guiding principles of Halloween, wanting candy, and it has become part of countless Halloween party soundtracks. While most people know the ’80s Bow Wow Wow version or the 2000s Aaron Carter cover, the song was originally one of the biggest hits of a band called The Strangeloves. While its members pretended to be from three ex-sheep farmers from Australia named Miles, Giles and Niles, it was actually made up for three Jewish musicians from New York: Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer.
8. “Pet Sematary” by the Ramones
This is your periodic reminder that the late Joey Ramone grew up in a Jewish home in Queens and was born Jeffrey Ross Hyman. A biopic about him, which was meant to star Pete Davidson as Joey and based on a book written by his Mikey Leigh (born Mitchell Hyman), seems to be going through a legal dispute with Joey’s wife. The band’s original drummer, Tommy Ramone, born Tamás Erdélyi, was the son of Jewish Hungarian Holocaust survivors. This song was written for the Steven King movie “Pet Sematary,” based on a book by the same name by King, who was a big Ramones fan. DeeDee Ramone apparently wrote the song in an hour while visiting King’s Maine home, and it has since become one of the band’s biggest hits.
9. “Demons” by Doja Cat
The newest song on this list, this 2023 song with a truly terrifying video by Jewish rapper Doja Cat will probably be played at Halloween parties that I’m too cool to go to. The song itself stemmed from the artist’s desire to put out another truly great rap song, and this one is about fame and demons. The video, which stars frequent horror movie star Christina Ricci, is a truly magnificent ode to classic horror movies of the ’80s.
Honorable mention: the “Ghostbusters” theme
No, Ray Parker Jr. who wrote the incredible “Ghostbusters” theme is not Jewish, but Ivan Reitman who directed the original movie franchise and the video for the song is, as is Harold Ramis, the movie’s co-writer. And one would argue that if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have one of the greatest Halloween songs — and some of the greatest Halloween costumes — ever made.
