The 7 most haunted songs for the scariest season

This piece was originally published in 2022 and has been updated in 2024.

We all know that "Monster Mash" is a real graveyard smash, but it's not a very scary song. It's certainly not the kind of Halloween song that's truly haunting.

So we dug deep into our goosebump memory banks and thought about songs that are so creepy our skin crawls with every note. Songs that chill our bones and beckon us deeper into the dark side. Songs that we cannot escape, that have shadowed us like spilled ink, staining every corner of our lives. 

This is what we uprooted and unleashed, our psyches terrorized anew as we pressed play once more. Please enjoy CBC Music's list of the seven most haunted songs

'Storm,' Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Let's face it: 22 minutes is bone-chilling in length alone, but it's what GY!BE does with those 22 minutes that's so affecting. The music begins tentatively enough before crescendoing with possibility only to collapse in atonal cacophony before a long pause and then the stab of piano keys as if stepping into a dystopian new world. Fuzzed out distant radio addresses play as if that's the sole emergency responder as those who are left try to collecting themselves after the fallout, putting themselves and their worlds back together, broken but still here, living ghosts searching for what they once knew to be true. — Andrea Warner

'Possession,' Sarah McLachlan

It was a massive hit, and it's the song that made Stevie Nicks fall in love with her, but the dark heart behind Sarah McLachlan's most chilling track is the stuff of true-crime nightmares. "Possession" was partially inspired by McLachlan's own experiences with a stalker. According to a 1998 Rolling Stone interview, the stalker believed McLachlan was betrothed to him in utero, and he sent her disturbing letters and even met her at least once. When he heard the song, he tried to sue McLachlan, claiming she'd used his letters as source material. He died by suicide before the matter made it to court. The song continues to be visceral and evocative, creepy but cathartic as McLachlan asserts herself as the fantasy aggressor and delivers one of her most thrilling vocal performances to date. — AW

'Charlie,' Colin Stetson

When I first heard Colin Stetson's music, I described it as "nightmare fuel." The saxophonist has since made quite a living off making scary music, composing scores for films like Hereditary and 2022's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. While I am admittedly not a fan of the former, Stetson's score, including the chill-inducing track "Charlie," haunted me long after I finished watching Ari Aster's horror hit. — Melody Lau 

'Tangerine,' Moist 

What we don't understand, we fear. — unknown

Canadian alt-rock bands don't generally incite fear in me, but Moist's 1996 hit "Tangerine" has always made my skin crawl. The third single off the band's sophomore album, Creature, was a big hit, winning MuchMusic Video Awards for best video and best director. I also think it's Moist's most unsettling track. Honestly, what's spookier than a group of men shouting? From its eerie opening notes to David Usher's increasingly distressed howling of the line "I'm just as frightened as I've always been," the song sparks an internal conflict between intimacy and rejection. I know all the lyrics, but I want to bury them away so I'm not tortured by them playing in my brain for days on loop. Perhaps my inability to understand what the song is really about drives my uneasiness when I listen to it. "Tangerine" still triggers my nerves just like it did in the late '90s, which makes this song completely haunting. — Ashley Catania

'Plasticity,' Front Line Assembly

I'm crafting a retcon that industrial music existed in our nightmares long before the music genre itself was created. It pulls you underwater so you can't breath, immobilises your legs so you can't run, or silences your screams — those terrifying dreams where relief washes over when you wake. From those feelings of terror, artists including Front Line Assembly found a way to recreate the darkest parts of our psyche as sound, and industrial as we know it was born. The reason it works so well as a genre is because we've already heard it — or felt it — all our lives. "Plasticity" is pure industrial: high-paced driving beat like a racing heart, and vocal distortion straddling rage and terror. The song is so effective at being disturbing because it's the sound of your nightmares but you're awake — aren't you? — Ben Aylsworth

'Stillbirth,' Alice Glass 

In 2015, Crystal Castles singer Alice Glass released her debut single, "Stillbirth," a song that lays bare the years of abuse she has accused her former bandmate of during their years as a duo. While the cacophony of the track may feel intense, it's Glass's lyrics that are truly haunting as she exorcises her pain by screaming: "You don't own me anymore." "I want young women and young men to understand that this kind of treatment of others can happen where it might be least expected," Glass said in a statement, noting how abuse can be seen in plain sight sometimes. "Stillbirth" is both chilling and cathartic, shedding light on the evils that lurk nearby, but also the strength and perseverance of its songwriter, who lived to tell the tale. — ML 

'W.I.T.C.H.,' Devon Cole

This dance-pop-party empowerment anthem is infused with hundreds of years of wild, witchy energy, and yet it couldn't be more timely. "W.I.T.C.H." stands for Woman In Total Control of Herself and in a year that's been truly and legitimately terrifying for so many women in the world, Devon Cole has crafted a track that's all about reclaiming and celebrating our agency. "Rumour on the street is that her apples are delicious/ the jury said she's charming but her exes say she's wicked," Cole sings in the opening bars, invoking everything from fairytale depictions of gendered evil to slut-shaming to the #MeToo movement. At the 51-second mark in the video, one of the dancers lets out a short, sharp, cathartic scream, and it's a sound that echoes in the soul of so many women who are living in this horror show of a world, ripe as it is with oppression, misogyny and gender-based violence. The blast of "bite me" in "W.I.T.C.H." casts a contemporary feminist spell just when we need it the most. — AW