TRACK #332:
On October 31 (Halloween Song) by Bob Hannon
So now it’s finally Halloween, but we’ve definitely already blown our Hall-load for the year and we’re 2 songs outside of a 10-slot for the big day. Where does that leave us?
Well, there’s always that old fallback, the Halloween Date Track. First and last seen on Halloween of 2018, when Acid Witches’ sinister October 31st took the holiday position.
This one reminds me of Kaye Lande’s Halloween, in that it’s set to a piece of classical music. In fact, all the Songs For Little Folks are, that was the whole point, I guess.
For Kay Lande it was Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns Danse Macbre.
In the case of Bob Hannon, it’s Evard Grieg’s In The Hall of the Mountain King, which is no stranger to being used and abused.
As far back as Fritz Lang’s M and further, and as recently as this years ad for the Bob’s Burgers movie, and countless commercials, trailers, video games, cartoons and TV shows in between, In The Hall of the Mountain King has been ringing in your ears your whole life. You know the tune.
The song is even said to have inspired the Inspecter Gadget theme, which – now that they mention it – yeah, fuckin-a it did!
But what is it?
Well, it was a piece of incidental scoring from the 1867 Henrik Ibsen play, Peer Gynt. The play is all about trolls or whatever and this dude named Peer enters their mountain abode with the Mountain King’s daughter or something. The King wants them to bang I think, which is weird, and that act will turn Peer into a Troll, which is good for the King somehow. I dunno, it was in Norwegian, Mac, I didn’t understand.
At any rate, for our final song of Halloween 2022, here’s On October 31 (Halloween Song) by Bob Hannon.
Thanks for tuning in, everybody! We’ll see ya soon with some new additions to the site, some rare finds and some new episodes of Shindig Radio!
Have a Happy Halloween!
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