The Sounds Of Halloween 2025

The Sounds of Christmas station switches to Halloween music in October, which is now just around the corner.

I get questions about that a lot, and I've posted variations on this blog several times, and I've recorded similar podcasts episodes about it in the past, but since this is starting up next week, I thought it was time to talk about it again..

This is a tradition I started years ago, in the early days of the Sounds of Christmas station. I’m going to share this story once again - the how and why of the Sounds of Halloween, and how it happened in the first place.

Like most families, Halloween and Christmas have always been big at our house. Lisa and the kids are on the Halloween side, while I'm with Santa.

I learned long ago not to try and convert any of them. I think what happened at Disneyland once explains it best. In one of the studios at California Adventure, you can use this machine to determine which hero or villain you are.

I was Tarzan. All three of them were villains.

Oh, well. They love me, anyway.

So as we move toward October, I get super-busy working on the new season of the Sounds of Christmas. While the station stays on year-round, I had decided to make a change in October, turning the Sounds of Christmas into the Sounds of Halloween from October 1 through Halloween night.  

I admit, mostly, this was just for my family, while I kicked the tires and otherwise make sure everything was set to go for the coming season, especially loading lots of new music.

But in doing this that first time, I found there are a lot of other people that love Halloween and Halloween music, too, so, year after year, I've expanded the playlist, finding more and more Halloween music.

With all that said, the other question I get a lot is - what exactly is Halloween music?

Some of it is pretty obvious. Monster Mash. Purple People Eater. Ghostbusters. Songs about things you associate with Halloween - ghosts, monsters, werewolves, vampires and witches. Some are scary stories, and some are about candy or trick-or-treating.

I also include songs from scary movies and TV shows. Some of those are pretty creepy. And some are funny. Many are in-between.

While there are some kids' songs (like The Count from Sesame Street), a few of the songs do have bad language. And some of the themes of some songs are straight out of horror movies, and those probably aren't for little kids, either. I only say that so you’ll know that, for the month of October, parental guidance is suggested.

And like the Sounds of Christmas, I add new stuff to the Sounds of Halloween every year - like the new song "Ghost" from Rob Thomas' new album, plus Fawn's new Halloween singles and Hannah Gill's new album Spooky Jazz Vol. 3. 

On the Sounds of Christmas, I play many versions of many songs, so you won't just hear Bing Crosby's version of "White Christmas". You'll hear lots of different singers and bands, old and new, offering their takes on that classic. And l do the same thing with the Halloween tunes. For example, I have over a dozen versions of "Bad Moon Rising", around thirty versions of "Ghost Riders In The Sky" and over three dozen different takes on “I Put A Spell On You” (though I may not get to all of them this year, as I try to separate songs and artists so you don't hear the same songs and same voices over and over).

During the Sounds of Halloween, you will hear from many of your favorite Christmas music singers and bands, including Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Mannheim Steamroller and even Bruce Springsteen!

There are songs about Killer Tomatoes, Black Magic Women and Haunted Houses. There are also songs about Alien Invasions, Invisible Men and over a dozen versions of “Monster Mash").

And I play lots of movie and TV songs, including animated classics, new releases and even at least half a dozen songs from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

As a further example, and to give you a better idea of what I mean by Halloween music, here are a dozen songs I randomly shuffled from the Sounds of Halloween library as I put this latest blog together and added it to the Sounds of Christmas website...

Buster Doss and His Arkansas Playboys “Graveyard Boogie"
Joe Louis Walker and Waddy Wachtel “Werewolves of London"
Say Hi "These Fangs"
Leon Russell “I Put A Spell On You"
Rob Zombie “They Are The Munsters"
King Luan “No Vampires Remain In Romania"
Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band “Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes"
Delta Rae “Dance In The Graveyard"
Run DMC "Ghostbusters"
Otis Redding "Trick Or Treat"
Harry Gold and His Pieces Of Eight “The Ghost Of Ol' Man Mose”
Hoodoo Gurus "Death Ship"

You probably recognized some of those songs, and probably some of those artists, but maybe, at least in some cases, not both. And you might not have realized some of those artists had recorded a version of something, like Run DMC's version of "Ghostbusters". Now, I have a bunch of versions of "Ghostbusters", including the original by Ray Parker Jr. (of course), along with Run DMC's version, and others by Bowling For Soup, Pentatonix and Bruce Springsteen (among others), and I play all of those. Hope that makes sense.

One thing that is different this year, at least different than most previous years. The Sounds of Halloween will run until 6am (Eastern) on November 1. That way, the West Coast of the U.S. (and even Hawaii) will get a chance to finish celebrating Halloween, before the new season of the Sounds of Christmas begins. 

I hope you enjoy this upcoming celebration of Halloween throughout October! And then the new season of the Sounds of Christmas will be here, starting on November 1!

​May you always believe in Santa Claus (and also the Great Pumpkin)!

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