TRACK #329:
It’s Halloween (Stop Look and Listen) by Pete Antell
Since everyone’s all Myersed-up right now from Halloween Ends and Fallacy and since over here (a year behind) we’re still yakin’ about Halloween Kills, we thought it’d be a perfect time to drop this addition.
One of the few moments of genuine interest I experienced while watching Halloween Kills last year was the introduction of Big John. A curious tune began to play during the establishing shots of the Myers house. A tune I was unfamiliar with. Even as it played, I couldn’t quite tell if it was a bonafide Halloween oldie I had just never heard before or some new song made to sound old.
I stayed through the whole credits of that dumb movie just to find out the name of that song.
Turns out it was It’s Halloween (Stop Look, and Listen) by Pete Antell, and the answer to that question, evidently, is somewhere right in the middle.
The song was apparently written by musician and band leader Raymond “Dutch” Wolff way back in 1952. According to his daughter, Melora (who provides several bits of interesting history via the YouTube listing where this song debuted) it was a tune he used to sing to the children when they were all young.
However, the song was never actually recorded. At least it hadn’t been until Wolff’s friend, a musician/singer/songwriter and producer named Pete Antell urged him to lay down the track.
So, they all set about recording it, getting the old band back together as it were, with Pete on vocals and Ray himself firing up the sax. They then released the track in 2012 on YouTube, where it stayed, mostly under the radar, for almost 10 years until it magically appeared in David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills.
Then, it blew up. Thousands upon thousands of views and hundreds upon hundreds of comments demanding the song be released later, Pete and company dropped a digital single onto streaming platforms within a couple of weeks.
Curiously though, they changed the name of the song to Stop Look and Listen, It’s Halloween for its official release. I’m not sure why exactly, and I rather prefer it’s original title, but hey, it’s their tune.
Pete is kind enough to pop into his own YouTube comments thread at times, but most of his responses are terse and lack elaboration. Trust me, I read through all 800 and whatever of them just to try to dig up information on this track.
And though I’m sure you’re aware, I’d just like to say here, a YouTube comments section is an awful place to spend any amount of time.
Pro-tip for young YouTubers reading: no one gives a shit why you’re there watching a video, or even that you are. Please refrain from wasting peoples time and bandwidth with the unnecessary and tiresome “Here cause of Halloween Kills.” Yeah, no shit.
Oh, and I’d like to double that sentiment for the even more annoying “POV” prefaced “no one was watching this video until Halloween Kills.” Again, no shit, jackass. And that includes you, nimrod. Just watch the video, thumb it up and move the fuck along. Yikes.
My apologies. I just felt particularly stupefied after wading through that insipid thread for nuggets of information that were few and far between. Back to the tune!
So, though it was recorded only 10 years ago, this number has all the Hallmarks of a jazzy tune written in 1952. It’s a little piece of nostalgia that taps right into the heart of an old time Halloween, cause that’s where it originated. And I doubt I’m in the minority when I say that this, not even this scene, but exclusively this song, is the best thing Halloween Kills has to offer.
So we’ve peppered it with some H43 samples and used the original title here, as it is listed in the film, cause old or not, you got a bonafide inclusive Halloween track on your hands now.
Lead in by hometown hero Willy the Kid, on WURG, Haddonfield’s home for rock, which makes a sneeze and you’d miss it appearance there in Kills. You can expect to hear a little more Willy next year, cause you know there’s nothing we like more around here than Horror movie DJs. And Halloween Ends put Willie right in the drivers seat, as he opened up that whole shitshow with the Halloween monster party playlist staple and Shindig bullpenner Midnight Monster Hop by Jack and Jim. Which, true to the precedent set by its predecessor, is the single best part of that whole movie.
We got kind of a Halloween thing happening here right now, so we’ll just have to leave that ditty in the pen for one more year.
Until then, stop look and listen…it’s almost Halloween!
