In 1962, dance songs were all the rage. Chubby Checker hit it big with “The Twist,” while Sam Cooke was “Twistin’ the Night Away.” The dance craze even spawned a song about itself as “The Land of a Thousand Dances” by Chris Kenner.
However, there’s one song from the era that will not die, and that’s “Monster Mash.”
Bobby “Boris” Pickett‘s novelty hit rises from the dead every October to remind us of the reason for the season: goofy, spooky fun. The tune hits a nostalgic note for most listeners, who reminisce about trick-or-treating. It’s been a staple of every Halloween for the past six decades and shows no signs of stopping. In fact, Billboard just named the song the biggest Halloween song of all time.
“Monster Mash” was even nostalgic at its time. It brought together the danceable beats of ’60s dance hits with the doo-wop style of the ’50s. The song’s creation really began when Pickett and co-writer Leonard Capizzi stumbled upon the idea from an impression.
“Lenny Capizzi—like myself—was a horror movie freak and love Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff,” he said in an interview with Dr. Demento. “[So], he and I were the perfect team to get this idea kicking…and he had suggested it one night after we had sung ‘Little Darling’ by the Diamonds. You know there’s that monologue in there…and I did it as Boris Karloff…and the audience cracked up. After the set he said, ‘you know we oughta do a novelty record—they do very well.’ And I said ‘No, I’m a serious actor, I’m off to other places…’ So I got an agent, and after two weeks, the agent died of a heart attack. So, I called up Lenny and I said, ‘You know that idea you had, like, a few months ago? Let’s get together and do that. So we did.'”
The duo wrote the song in under an hour, and the recording process only took a few hours.
Musically, “Monster Mash” is rooted in early ’60s rock simplicity. It’s based on a repeating four-chord progression (I, vi, IV, V) with a steady piano rhythm and call-and-response backup vocals. If you ever thought the background singers’ line sounded funny, you were right. “It’s “Ooooh, tennis shoe, wah-oooh.” We don’t know why,” Pickett admits.
As silly as the lyrics are, they caused quite a stir. “Monster Mash” was banned by BBC for over a decade. “With lyrics like ‘it was a graveyard smash,’ the BBC failed to see the funny side and banned the song for being ‘too morbid,'” the company writes in a retrospective. “Though it made No.1 on the Billboard charts in the year it was written, the offending novelty hit didn’t chart in the UK until 1973, when it went to No.3.”
“Monster Mash” has been a beloved song covered by artists ranging from the Beach Boys to The Misfits. Now, it’s your turn to join the fun with the sheet music for “Monster Mash”:
