The Pogues - “The Old Main Drag”

The Decemberists - “On the Bus Mall”

—

—

Thanks to everyone who voted during Halloween week!

SCENE I.

A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches

first witch:

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

second witch:

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

third witch:

Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ’tis time.

first witch:

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

all:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble…

Donovan - “Season of the Witch”

Santana - “Black Magic Woman”
-

-<-->

“When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demonaic fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there…” Bram Stoker - Dracula

Bauhaus - “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”

Concrete Blonde - “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)”
—

—

“When they separated, Peter bent down to the two halves of the mirror and held his palm over one of the pieces. A delicious wind (the one song which is my song) lilted up from it. He felt or sensed Ricky stiffening beside him; half a tender mouth glimmered in his hand, just visible. He drove his heel into the broken mirror, then brought it down again and again, splitting the silvery glass into a scattered jigsaw puzzle…” Peter Straub - Ghost Story

Kristin Hersh - “Your Ghost”

Heartless Bastards - “Searching for the Ghost”

“It turned out that everyone in the prison had a zombie contingency plan, once you asked them, just like everyone in prison had a prison escape plan, only nobody talked about those. Soap tried not to dwell on escape plans, although sometimes he dreamed that he was escaping. Then the zombies would show up. They always showed up in his escape dreams. You could escape prison, but you couldn’t escape zombies. This was true in Soap’s dreams, just the way it was true in the movies. You couldn’t get any more true than that…” - Kelly Link

L7 - “Pretend We’re Dead”

Shriekback - “Nemesis”

“But suddenly a mighty tumult arose, and there were cries of “The werewolf!” “The werewolf!” Terror seized upon all — stout hearts were frozen with fear. Out from the further forest rushed the werewolf, wood wroth, bellowing hoarsely, gnashing his fangs and tossing hither and thither the yellow foam from his snapping jaws…” - Eugene Field

Warren Zevon - “Werewolves of London”

Duran Duran - “Hungry Like the Wolf”

Welcome to Song-Off’s first ever theme week - Halloween! Each day this week we’ll be posting a new matchup featuring songs about some of the most familiar Halloween creatures. Every night at midnight the blood of the loser will soak into the graveyard soil, another pair of soulless ghouls will spring to life, and the battle will begin anew.

Last week, the Violent Femmes annihilated Built to Spill, as their share of the votes added up to 72%. Join us tomorrow for the first contest in our Halloween theme week - Werewolves.

Violent Femmes - “Add It Up”

Built to Spill - “Carry the Zero”

Hi folks! Since I’m currently under the weather, I’ll keep this short and sweet. As of today, there have been fourteen Song-Off matchups. I’ve got a endless supply of matchups already lined up for the future, but I thought it would be fun to see what matchups that Popdose readers would like to see. So have at it in the comments section below:

…It is also the story of a book, a book called The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - not an Earth book, never published on Earth, and until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or heard of by any Earthman.

Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.

In fact it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor - of which no Earthman had ever heard either.

Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid’s trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don’t Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

Coldplay - “Don’t Panic”

Neil Young - “Heart of Gold”

Radiohead - “Paranoid Android”

Last week, Zack pulled off a surprise upset against DwDunphy, as Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom” took home 55% of the vote against David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Next week, we’ll do a recap of how the various matchups have turned out, as well as taking a look at what’s in store for the future.