The top 5 spooky jams to have playing in the background during Halloweek!

By Chris Woods

This week’s Work from Home Halloween Playlist is part of our Work from Home Series, where we share some of our favorite things about working from home and have the opportunity to connect with you on a more personal level.

In preparation for Halloween, this past weekend, “CBS News Sunday Morning” did a piece on one of my favorite topics – scary music!  (Check it out: How scary music makes movies scarier.) How fascinating that a series of notes in a certain sequence can bring immediate psychological distress and evoke our fight-or-flight response.  What I didn’t know is that hundreds of scary movies use the exact same tune, which is over 1,000 years old, known as Dies irae, dies illa.  Found in movies such as The Shinning, Friday the Thirteenth, and Sweeney Todd, this collection of notes triggers our brains to expect bad things to happen.  So, as you sit at home this Halloween basking in your sugar high, remember that it’s not what you see that scares you – it’s what you hear.

Oh, and in case you have friends over for some pumpkin carving, make sure you have the right set of tunes to set the mood.  Here are some of my favorites:

The Shining Theme

Tubular Bells – Mike Oldfield

Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell

November – Max Richter

Survive – Chelsea Wolfe