Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo

I am still feeling under the weather and I have not yet finished research on a planned blog post (the wait will be worth it--I promise), so tonight I will leave you with a song befitting the holiday, "Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo.

"Dead Man's Party" was written Danny Elfman and appeared on Oingo Boingo's album of the same name. It was released as the second single from the album. Given how famous the song has become, it might come as a surprise that it did not chart.

The song itself centres on an individual who has just died and is attending "...a party where no one's alive." "Dead Man's Party" takes inspiration from the more macabre side of popular culture. The line "Walkin' with a dead man over my shoulder" would seem to come from the phrase, "Dead man walking", once used in American prisons for those condemned to death. The line "I was struck by lighting/Walkin' down the street" brings to mind Universal's classic horror movie Frankenstein (1931). The line "I hear the chauffeur comin' to the door/Says there's room for maybe just one more" goes all the way back to E. F. Benson's 1906 short story "The Bus-Conductor", which centred on a distubing conversation an individual has with a hearse driver. The story originated the phrase "room for one more", which would appear in numerous urban legends over the years and would provide the inspiration for the Twilight Zone episode "Twenty Two".

Without further ado, here is "Dead Man's Party".