everyday is halloween

do you have a thing, a song, movie, piece of art, anything, that is not supposed to be scary yet that thing gives you the willies?  no?  yes?  well, for me it's this song by the fictive TV musical act the partridge family.  como?  it doesn't make any rational sense.  but rarely those things that go bump in the night make sense.  see, this song was released in the very early '70s when i was a small child.  my family lived in san jose.  in a house with a pitched roof.  i was quite an imaginative kid & a scaredy cat to boot.  i was going thru my monster phase.  you know, run to your bed at night & put your head under the blanket so that thing living under the bed won't get you.  i thought if there was any place in the house that witches, & other creatures of the night, would live is in that area of the roof where it was pitched.  now, comes along this song.  it's tremendously popular.  the singer, & star of the eponymous TV show, david cassidy was the dream boy for a great many people.  this song was always on the radio.  you couldn't escape it.  the instrumentation features a keyboard that sounds to me like a harpsichord.  harpsichords are the instruments deluxe in horror movies.  cassidy is singing about his fear, a dread, of being in love.  fear.  plus his vocal pitch puts me in mind of someone crazed.  i can't explain this rationally.  this song, to me, is a natural for a horror film.  think on it.  you're trapped in a dank & darkened basement.  you have no idea where the hell you are & who grabbed you.  then you hear a click.  your senses quicken.  your hearing is so acute you are able to hear, faintly, the wind & rain outside your environment.  then a short faint click.  an electric hum.  a moment later whoever brought you to this place turns on this song.  the melody & tone are incongruous to your immediate peril.  yet, utterly appropriate to the horrors of your predicament.  you sit in tense dread knowing you are about to meet your monster.  that's the kind tune that hits all those horror movie tropes.  also, did i mention that in the very early '70s i was deep into my monster phase.  monsters were not only lurking under my bed to grab my feet as i leapt under the covers at night.  they were in my closet, outside my window in the shape of tree branches, hiding in the shadows, & just beyond my field of vision.  & cassidy's croon was of no help!  this song still gives me the willies.  & so it is part of my permanent halloween hit parade.

boo