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The word Halloween doesn’t appear in Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s 1954 folk classic “Monster Mash,” yet every late October, like clockwork, people who otherwise show no interest in the song are suddenly comfortable playing it ad nauseum. It’s disrespectful to both the legacy of the artist and to the fans for whom the song has incredible meaning to ghettoize this beautiful work to such a brief time of the year. Please, don’t play Monster Mash on Halloween unless you listen to it year-round.
The song begins with the mournful plaint of a man who was working in his lab late one night when his eyes beheld an eerie sight: a monster doing a dance called the Monster Mash. What about that seems silly to you? What about that makes you think it would be appropriate to play at your little Halloween party? These lyrics ask powerful questions about who our society deems monstrous, and we have a responsibility to consider those questions all year long.
The song continues by alluding to a bedroom where vampires feast and ghouls get a jolt from electrodes. How anyone could hear about either of those arresting images and hear something to carve a pumpkin to is beyond me. Vampires kill people. Is that fun to you? Ghouls are people who have died. Have a little respect.
But those aren’t the only participants in the graveyard smash, an event deemed nonnormative by those in positions of power. Borris’ lab is a welcoming place of refuge for zombies, people who have succumbed to disease; Wolfman, a man who must hide an integral part of his identity by living in the woods; and of course, Igor, an abused lab assistant who lacks the facilities to recognize that his labor is exploited. Just because they all dance to the “Transylvania Twist” and form a spooky rockin’ band called the “Crypt-Keeper Five” doesn’t mean their stories shouldn’t be treated with dignity whatever the season.
So next time you hear the immortal words “do the Monster Mash,” know that aren’t instructing you to dance; they’re asking you to listen.
