12 best Halloween songs according to YouTube

J.S. Bach, “Toccata & Fugue in D minor”, somewhere in the early to mid 1700s

What do all those funny words mean? Well, I’ll get to that. Basically what you need to know is that it’s the peice of classical music most often used for horror movies and villains. It was first used for music in film in 1931 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. According to YouTube, people listen to this timeless piece 3x more on Halloween.

Wanna music lesson? Here ya go:

A toccata is a composition of music for the keyboard or organ that displays the performer’s technique. A fugue, then, is a piece of music that is introduced by one player or instrument and then layered with other instruments until they are interwoven, almost overwhelmingly. This composition is both of these things, and creepy; the perfect haunted house soundtrack.

Ironically enough, fugue can also mean “a state or period of loss of awareness of one’s identity, often couples with flight from one’s usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.” Which is, basically, exactly what this song invokes.

In addition to Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the composition has also been used in The Phantom of the Opera, Rollerball, and Sunset Boulevard.