Copyright The New York Times
Dear listeners, Olivia here — I’m today’s guest playlister, a Culture desk contributor and a certified lover of the fall. This selection of songs for spooky season was born on the drive back from a weekend jaunt in the Hudson River Valley, during which I indulged in a number of autumnal traditions: apple picking, leaf peeping, singing in the car getting lost upstate. Unfortunately, I was a week too late to catch the witch paddle in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., a delightful annual event that assembles a floating coven on the Hudson. These witches have the right idea, if you ask me: A paddle board sounds much more comfortable than a broomstick. Witches have many identities in the contemporary popular imagination: They are practitioners of modern paganism, historical emblems of feminist resistance, the foundation of a whole micro-economy on Etsy. For some, “witchy” is simply a byword for feeling a little dark and mysterious. This playlist celebrates witchiness across a spectrum of meanings, just in time for Halloween. Listen along while you read. 1. Kate Bush: “Waking the Witch” Kate Bush’s entanglements with the supernatural long preceded her star-rejuvenating sync in Netflix’s paranormal thriller “Stranger Things,” which pushed her 1985 song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” back onto the Hot 100 a few years back. “Waking the Witch,” from the same album, is Bush’s thrillingly cinematic enactment of a witch trial, dramatized by icy, frenetic synths, driving guitar and a demonic witch hunter voice that duets with Bush’s feathery soprano. Like “Running Up That Hill,” it’s a goth-pop epic with feminist subtext: Bush has described the song as being about “the fear of women’s power.” ▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
