Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on June 24, 2017. Photo: Paige K. Parsons.

The first year of this column was dedicated to listing my five (or so) favorite songs of every year, so I’ve had three Octobers of writing this where I get to pick the theme each week. In that time I’ve written, by my count, nine Halloween music themed columns. I had to add a superfluous word to that last sentence just to link them all. The year 2020 alone had five of them.

Five was probably too many, but one column in 2021 was too few. So this year I’m doing two. That’s a sensible number, I think. And it’s my column, so that’s literally the only thing that’s important.

Previously, I’ve done oddly specific themes, but this year I’m just kinda not. Once I’m 45 songs in, it’s hard to be picky. But oh, I have an endless list of seasonal favorites, and you’re getting five more.

Broken Peach — “Don’t You Want Me”

This one is very new, as in this week new. The song itself isn’t super Halloween-y, but the video absolutely is and I love the band.

Spanish band Broken Peach broke into the public consciousness with its cover of “This Is Halloween” in 2015 and they’ve made it a tradition since. Previous covers included “I Put A Spell On You” and “Tainted Love,” but this one rocks the hardest.

Put this on your Halloween party playlist and it’ll fit right in.

M83 — “Midnight City”

Staying in Europe and staying with creepy videos, here’s French electronic artist M83.

This one doesn’t rock but does have the eerie Halloween vibe. Vaguely ethereal, moderately unsettling. Very mood-setting. Love it. “Midnight City” is the only M83 song I know.

[Gokhman note: Yes, it appears that Willis really learned about the music of Anthony Gonzalez through a Halloween playlist. But if you read this column regularly, that likely won’t surprise you. Personally, if there’s any dress-up and dance songs by M83, I would have gone with Junk. You know, the one with the two Cousin-Itt-like creatures on the cover].

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — “Red Right Hand”

Let’s be real, every Nick Cave song works as a Halloween song. The man has an aesthetic. But this one’s notable for being especially Halloween, and as such, it’s a regular on movie and TV soundtracks.

For example, remember the newest “Scream” movie? It was in that. “Peaky Blinders” had it too. Also some… lesser stuff, like a movie called “Slash 3” that looks like the cheapest possible ripoff of “Scream” imaginable, and a German miniseries called “Herr und Frau Bulle” about… something German I suppose, I don’t speak the language.

Luniz featuring Michael Marshall — “I Got 5 On it (Tethered Mix)”

On the one hand, I want to say this is probably only appropriately themed if you’ve seen the fantastic Jordan Peele movie “Us,” but then I listened to it again and it’s just creepy.

Can we talk about “Us” for a second? I loved the movie, don’t get me wrong. It was incredibly creepy and the idea of being stalked and hunted by an exact but crazy and evil duplicate of yourself is unsettling. Also, I can’t look at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk at night the same again. That said, does anyone understand the ending? I know what happened, but what’s the symbolism there? I genuinely don’t get what it represents. It represents something but went over my head.

Tell me I’m stupid and patronizingly explain it to me on Twitter.

Smashing Pumpkins — “Eye”

I could have sworn I included this in a previous Halloween column. It’s not explicitly scary but the dark pseudo-chiptune vibe and the tone of the chorus are just vaguely creepy enough to be perfect. It’s one of my October go-to’s on my Halloween playlist.

I went through all my Halloween columns and, apparently, the only Smashing Pumpkins song I included before was “We Only Come Out At Night,” in 2020.

Until next week, here’s the playlist for all 10 columns:

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.