Buttkickin' Halloween Songs: "Ghost of Stephen Foster" - Squirrel Nut Zippers (1998)

Met the Ghost of Stephen Foster
At the Hotel Paradise
This is what I told him as I gazed into his eyes:
Rooms were made for carpets
Towers made for spires
Ships were made for cannonade
To fire off from inside them…

You do not know how long I spent looking for images of a “Haunted Bar Mitzvah”.

Nothing really worked well, so take those jolly dancing ghosts instead. Because Ghost of Stephen Foster sounds exactly like a freakin’ haunted bar mitzvah, and I dare you to listen and tell me otherwise.

Of course this is not the first appearance of Squirrel Nut Zippers in our esteemed Buttkickin’ Halloween Songs, as they made a previous appearance with their undeniably wondrous tune Hell, and this 1998 follow-up is equally as worthy. I mean imagine if a klezmer band took over Disney’s Haunted Mansion one night a year. It’d probably sound something like this.

Oh, and who’s Stephen Foster? Just your run-of-the-mill 19th Century American songwriter who wrote such unknown and forgettable ditties like “Oh Susanna”, “Camptown Races”, “My Old Kentucky Home”, etc. and such as. Take from that what you will, because this song is just pure nonsense. But fun. Spooky Ashkenazic fun!

Anyway, this is a short but jaunty excursion, so prepare for Phantasmal Adulthood with Ghost of Stephen Foster and surrender to the spooktacular jazzy swing of it all!

And yeah, please watch that video. Especially if you’re a fan of old Max Fleischer cartoons!

Met the Ghost of Stephen Foster at the Hotel Paradise
This is what I told him as I gazed into his eyes:
Ships were made for sinking, whiskey made for drinking
If we were made of cellophane, we’d all get stinking drunk much faster, ha, ha, ha…