SPOOKYSONGS

No One Lives Forever – Oingo Boingo

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IbE_eXaQhV4

Danny Elfman, to me, is right up there with Vincent Price as one of the kings of horror/gothic cinema. He wrote the scores for Night Breed, Beetlejuice, Sleep Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, the list goes on. But his band, Oingo Boingo also has a history of spooky songs, particularly the album Dead Man’s Party.

Dead Man’s Party had several hit singles, chiefly their biggest hit “Weird Science“, which was the title song to the film and TV series of the same name, and “Dead Man’s Party“, which was featured in Back to School” and countless Halloween TV episodes. “Just Another Day” was featured in the opening episode of season 2 of Netflix’s “Stranger Things”, an homage to 80s horror. But there’s another one that hits closer for horror nerds – “No One Lives Forever.”

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the landmark all-time great horror films (and film in general). I’m not going to write much about it because there’s literal encyclopedias about it. It’s the sequel, cleverly titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, that is really the overlooked gem in 80s horror. Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, and Bill Mosely star in one of the most fun horror movies that exist. The movie is gory, hilarious, extremely 80s, and just perfect, without mocking the genre or its source material.

Plus it had a bangin’ soundtrack. “No One Lives Forever” plays over the opening scene of the movie, which is legendary, as two punks heading to a big football game are attacked by Leatherface on a bridge, all while on the phone to a local DJ. It’s brilliant.

The song itself is great for the Halloween playlist – danceable and weird, with an incessant bass/piano line that sounds like something is behind you, and it’s gaining on you fast. The only way I could describe the beat is relentless. It never lets up, and Elfman’s lyric delivery sounds like he’s running scared, all the while telling us (almost in a Princely 1999 fashion) that we should party because we’re all gonna die.

I’m so happy dancing, while the grim reaper

cuts cuts cuts

but he can’t get me…

The song was never released as a single, but “Weird Science” can be heard on any 80s channel nearly every hour. Oingo Boingo disbanded in the early 2000s but Elfman occasionally does a show or two.