Top 5 Spooky Country Songs for Halloween

Halloween is next week, and while people are carving pumpkins, shopping for costumes, and seeking out their fright night haunts, country music has a long history of spine-tingling spookerific songs to set the mood.

Videos by American Songwriter

Here’s a list:

Reba McEntire: “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”

McEntire remade Vicki Lawrence’s Southern gothic murder ballad in 1991 for her For My Broken Heart album. Lawrence’s then-husband Bobby Russell wrote “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” and Lawrence released it in 1973. While McEntire’s version fell just short of a Top 10 hit, it became one of the most popular songs of her career. Lawrence’s original take topped the US Billboard Hot 100.

Alan Jackson: “Midnight in Montgomery”

Written by Jackson and Don Sampson and released in 1992, “Midnight in Montgomery” details Jackson visiting Hank Williams’ grave on New Year’s Eve. Williams died on New Year’s Day in 1953 and is buried in Montgomery, Alabama. In the song, Jackson meets Williams’ ghost, who thanks him for the tribute.

Johnny Cash: “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky”

Cash sings about a cowboy with a vision of red-eyed, steel-hooved cows running across the sky as the spirits of damned cowboys chase them. The song is based on European myths of the Wild Hunt and the Dutch/Flemish legend of the Buckriders.

Charlie Daniels Band: “The Legend Of Wooley Swamp”

Daniels wrote “The Legend Of Wooley Swamp” and released it in 1980. “The Legend Of Wooley Swamp” was inspired by Woolie Swamp in Daniels’ native North Carolina. He hunted there as a child and remembered how swamps change at night.

“The Legend Of Wooley Swamp” talks about a man who, after hearing about a ghost in Wooley Swamp, declared it true and claimed it as his own.

Buck Owens: “It’s A Monsters Holiday”

Owens’ 1973 “It’s A Monsters Holiday” pairs his signature sound and guitar playing with a light-hearted, kitschy theme, including Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the Wolfman, and more. The novelty could easily be the theme song for a Halloween cartoon or a grin-inducing candy-clouded sing-along.

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns