Go-Go Godzilla

Ten heavy additions (plus two bonus tracks) to the JTL Halloween playlist

Do giant monsters count as Halloween fare?

This is an argument I’ve occasionally had with myself during early morning bouts of insomnia. Godzilla, King Kong, etc. are certainly frightening, but their horror comes from their gigantic size and wanton destructiveness — they’re not going to sneak up on you or materialize at the foot of your bed like a ghost or a vampire, because you can hear them toppling buildings from from a mile away.

And while, say, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Mummy are certainly bigger and more destructive than your average human, they have at least emerged from the creepy, atmospheric surroundings of a crumbling castle and an ancient tomb. Emerging from the ocean’s depths in the wake of a nuclear explosion just doesn’t quite have that “October feel”… which I guess is probably why Kaiju films tend not to wind up on my Halloween watchlists.

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But while my head says that songs about giant monsters don’t really belong on a Halloween playlist, my heart says, “Hell yeah, they do!” I mean, there are plenty of great songs out there paying musical tribute to them, so why not let these fictional (or otherwise) cryptids in on the fun? We’ll just have to move the party outside to accommodate them…

So prepare for mayhem and a whole lotta loud stomping, because ten of these humungous creatures have been invited to join the Jagged Time Lapse Halloween Jams playlist, which is still evolving on Spotify — and which you can access further on in this post. But let’s introduce our new guests one at a time, shall we?

Blue Öyster Cult — Godzilla

“History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man…” I must have heard this line at least a hundred times on WLUP before I realized just how true it was — and, sadly, still is. I put the 1977 studio version BOC’s tribute to the biggest lizard of all on the JTL playlist, but this live performance — complete with a non-more-Spinal Tap appearance from the G-man himself — is not to be missed.

Jimmy Castor Bunch — King Kong

As a diehard Kinks fan, my original inclination was to include their “King Kong” here, but that song really just used Kong as a metaphor — while Jimmy Castor not only tells the tale of the great ape on this 1975 funk jam, but also invites him onstage to boogie down during the Jimmy Castor Bunch’s Soul Train taping!

Blondie — The Attack of the Giant Ants

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the 1954 flick Them! — I had just moved to England with my dad and sister, and seeing giant ants lay waste to Los Angeles (where I’d just spent the summer) was an oddly effective balm for my homesickness. The film also surely inspired Chris Stein to pen this closing track from Blondie’s 1976 debut; hearing Debbie Harry sing “Then they eat ya face/Never leave a trace” in that Jersey deadpan never fails to put a smile on my still-intact face.

The 5.6.7.8’s — Mothra

The most popular female Japanese monster of all time, the gigantic (yet benevolent) silk moth also has one of the most iconic Kaiju theme songs — sung a cappella by Japanese duo The Peanuts in the original 1961 film, and rendered here in a righteously rocking more recent version by Japanese trio The 5.6.7.8’s.

King Geedorah — Monster Zero

The alter-ego of the late alternative hip-hop artist MF Doom — himself an alter-ego of rapper Daniel Dumile — King Geedorah took his name from the three-headed Japanese monster King Ghidorah… who is also known as Monster Zero. Got that? No? Well, just kick back and enjoy this groovy track, which samples dialogue from several Ghidorah-related flicks (as well as some episodes of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone) over a hazy hot-tub soul instrumental.

Black Sabbath — Iron Man

While it’s never explicitly stated that the titular character of “Iron Man” is particularly large, Black Sabbath’s lumbering music definitely makes it sound like the earth is shaking beneath his “heavy boots of lead”. And dig the groundbreaking band in early action on German TV…

Metallica — The Call of Ktulu

Sure, this list is heavy on the metal and hard rock — that’s what you get when you bring giant monsters into the picture. And no gigantic monster is arguably more fearsome than Cthulhu, the ancient, octopus-headed entity who — according to the works of H.P. Lovecraft — lies dreaming in the sunken city of R’lyeh until it is time to unleash his foulness again upon the world. “The Call of Ktulu,” the instrumental epic which closes Ride the Lightning, Metallica’s brilliant 1984 LP, is an appropriately creepy and majestic salute to Lovecraft’s malevolent creation.

Bro Smith — Bigfoot

Bigfoot fever was hot and heavy back in the mid-’70s, so much so that Baltimore DJ Alan Smith tried to cash in with this growling country novelty tune about the hairy “legend of horror” who is “tall as a timber” and is “gonna getcha” if you don’t watch out. Note that the Cash in the songwriting credit isn’t Johnny, but rather Baltimore songwriter/producer Joe — though writing it as “J. Cash” was probably somebody’s idea to trick gullible country radio DJs into giving the single a spin.

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers — Abominable Snowman in the Market

Bigfoot’s Himalayan cousin also made it here in the mid-’70s, at least if you believe Jonathan Richman’s 1976 charming fable, in which the mistreated and misunderstood foreigner looks for connection (and peas and carrots) in the aisles of the local supermarket. “It looks like a dirty marshmallow with fangs,” complain the local Karens to the store manager, but JoJo thinks the snowman’s a real nice guy and wants to help him out.

The Move — Brontosaurus

Dinosaurs are generally thought to have gone extinct eons ago, but this Brontosaurs made it all the way to #7 on the UK pop charts in the spring of 1970. The first Move recording made after Jeff Lynne arrived to help Roy Wood pilot both this band and the nascent Electric Light Orchestra, this delightfully (and appropriately) heavy track is powered by a massive riff that would show up again eight years later in Cheap Trick’s ripping cover of The Move’s “California Man”.

Monster-iffic enough for ya? The studio versions of these songs have all been added to the updated (and most spooktrackular) JTL Halloween Jams Spotify playlist here:

But wait — there’s more!

Singer-songwriter (and JTL subscriber)

Britta Pejic

has a great novelty song that isn’t on Spotify but definitely belongs here. The titular creatures in “Spiders on the Dance Floor” (which you can also find on Bandcamp) don’t sound like they’re big enough to go feeler-to-feeler with the giant ants from Them!, but I figure that they’ve gotta at least be somewhat larger than usual in order to cause this much havoc among the humans at the disco. In any case, I really love this track — especially its angular guitar riff, and its vocals which make me think of Siouxsie Sioux with a more playful sense of humor.

And as long as we’re letting some non-Spotify monsters in, here’s “Funky Squatch, Part One,” a track I cooked up last year (and only recently uploaded to YouTube) for my solo project The Corinthian Columns. Much like his cousin the Abominable Snowman, the Funky Squatch means no harm — he merely wants to bust some funky moves. Let him show you what he can do!

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That’s all for now, boils and ghouls — but I’ll be back soon with another round of killer Halloween cuts!