Spooky Folk Songs with Halloween Vibes

It’s that time of year when the air packs a chill, the leaves start to turn, and the spooky stories come out from their shadowy crypts.

To celebrate the coming Halloween, we here at Folk Alley have gathered a slew of spooky tunes together for your listening pleasure. A few of them are featured below, but we have plenty more on offer in our annual Scream Stream, available 24/7 on the Folk Alley app or website.

Langhorne Slim – “Zombie”

Langhorne Slim’s twisted love song “Zombie” is a tortured rumination on an elusive girl, likening her to a zombie who eats brains. Plus, the video plays on several horror movie tropes, from Thriller to Scream and beyond.

Buffy Sainte-Marie – “The Vampire”

Sainte-Marie’s vocals on this track are ghostly and otherworldly, as she delivers her lyrics about a lost vampire.

Tom Waits – “What’s He Building in There?”

Tom Waits has one of those voices that’s spooky at baseline, but this creepy poem-story-song about a
mysterious man locked up in a building alone is likely to raise some goosebumps.

Gillian Welch – “The Devil Had a Hold on Me”

This banjo-driven tune from Welch’s 1998 Hell Among the Yearlings album is about being possessed by the devil.

Laura Marling – “Ghosts”

Granted, the ghosts Marling sings about here are more than likely not the kind that lurk in a creepy old house from centuries ago. But haunting is haunting, and we’re going to count it.