Halloween is upon us, and there is no doubt that at some point today (10/31) or this evening, we will hear “The Monster Mash.” We will hear the classic song either at a party or on the street as parents drive their kids all over neighborhoods to trick or treat. It’s a fun song, but country music has some scary songs as well that go pretty nicely with the Halloween frightening vibe.

For a bit of history, Halloween is a holiday that began in Ireland and Britain. It has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. Halloween began to gain popularity in America in the 1950s. Today, over 179 million Americans celebrate the holiday — and spend about $9.1 billion annually in the process.

In country music, many songs have been recorded through the years that brought out ghosts, like Johnny Cash’s “Ghost Riders In The Sky” from the 1960s to Charlie Daniels’ ode to all things scary “The Legend Of The Whooley Swamp” in 1980.

Also, in the 1980s, John Anderson recorded a song that got right to the point called “Haunted Houses.” Most recently, in the 2020s, Brothers Osborne brought us the song “Skeletons.” The lyrics to that song include, “You got skeletons in your closet / It’s written all over your face / Every little lie stacked so high / Can’t keep your story straight / I don’t know oh oh / How they got there, it’s getting under my skin / You got skeletons in your closet / And I got bones to pick with them.”

In concert, the guys during the “Skeletons” tour had nine-foot-tall skeletons on stage with them every night.

As we celebrate Halloween today and all things a little spooky, we gathered five of country music’s scariest tunes.

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Garth Brooks - "The Thunder Rolls" (1991)
This song was co-written by Garth and was first pitched to Tanya Tucker. The original idea was Brooks’, as he wanted to explore the concept of “thunder rolling inside of a marriage and outside at the same time.” The official music video for “The Thunder Rolls” was powerful and focused on domestic violence. TNN and CMT later pulled the video for content. Because Brooks monitors and takes down what is released on YouTube, you cannot see the video anywhere on the internet now.
Eric Church - "Creepin'" (2012)
Eric co-wrote this song and came up with it while hungover inside a screened-in porch, and as he continued to play it, the title came to his head, which he later told co-writer Marv Green about the next day and loved it. She helped to provide the track with the chorus and put together the rest of the storyline. Shot in Chattanooga, the music video takes place on a runaway train around the turn of the 20th century, following a man being haunted by a female ghost.
Carrie Underwood - "Ghost Story" (2022)
Carrie told us of the song when it was released, “‘Ghost Story’ is a thrilling, dramatic song that songwriters wrote for me. They are such talented, amazing songwriters who know me so well, and from the first time I heard it, I knew I had to record it. I have always loved performing songs that tell a story and inspire some kind of cinematic imagery when you hear them, and that is definitely true of ‘Ghost Story.’ It creates a mood and a vibe that is different than anything else I’ve recorded before.”
Alan Jackson - "Midnight in Montgomery" (1992)
This song about the ghost of Hank Williams was written and recorded by Alan Jackson. The music video was filmed in black and white under a full moon amidst the headstones of an empty cemetery. It went on to win that year’s Country Music Association award for Music Video of the Year. They had to record the video twice; in the first take, there was a shadow that wasn’t supposed to be in the video.
Chris Janson with Eric Church - "You, Me, And The River" (2022)
This song was never released as a single for Janson, but it’s powerful just the same. Chris’s friend Eric Church sang on the song, and in the dramatic music video, at one point, you can see Janson throw dirt on a “dead” Eric lying on the ground, complete with his aviator shades still in place. It’s a chilling video, to say the least.