Buttkickin' Halloween Songs: "Monsters" - Tito & Tarantula (2008)

We’ve been here, at the Hate Hotel
We’re living together, we’re living in Hell
You know one day it’s gonna stop
Or we’ll kill each other for sure

Cause I’m a monster
And you know it so well
Cause you’re a monster too
And you’re doing it swell
We’re monsters
It’s just our genetic composure…

Tito & Tarantula is perhaps best known to audiences as the house band at the infamous “Titty Twister” saloon, the centerpiece of the incessantly buttkickin’ 1996 crime/vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn.

We featured their signature song After Dark in a previous Buttkickin’ Halloween Songs entry, and why not? First of all it’s an amazing song, second it’s perfectly dark and spooky and Halloweenish, and finally it conjures up images of Salma Hayek dancing in a leather bikini whilst holding an albino boa snake so… ’nuff said.

This time we’re taking a track from their 2008 album Back into the Darkness and what could be more apropos than a track called Monsters? Certainly this one is a contender, a dark, slinky, ZZ Top-adjacent rock number with a driving groove, distorted Ravenscroft vocals, and a bluesy resignation to the realization that we are all equal freaks in the same Mexican Carnival Nightmare.

Plus the track is full ofhorror/monster movie imagery, without shout-outs to classic Universal monsters, Japanese kaiju, Tod Brown’s Freaks, and so forth. The song is short and sweet and gives your Halloween playlist some groovy sexy spookiness.

Yeah Monsters reinforces the notion that we’re all oddballs and weirdos and misfits, especially in relationships, but isn’t that how we fall for each other anyhow? If you’re not a freak, you ain’t doing it right.

Cause I’m a monster
With a tear in my eye
And you’re a monster too
So don’t apologize
We’re monsters
It’s in our blood
Monsters
Having way too much fun…