You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween (song)

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Muse song
Name You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween[1]
Album/single
Length 3:00[2]
Alternative titles Halloween
First live performance
Latest live performance
Recorded 2021
Writer/composer Matthew Bellamy
Producer Muse
Chart position


Description

Regarded as Muse's version of Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me, the song's title has been "officially" leaked on March 14th, 2022 via the JSON output from wontstanddown.muse.mu, which contains basic album info. The song was leaked together with the rest of the album on August 23rd. This is the first song since Megalomania to prominently feature a church organ.

NME described the song as a "spooktronic" song. Lyrically, it talks about victims of domestic abuse during lockdowns.[3] Speaking about this song in an interview for Premier Guitar, Matt said "I grew up on things like Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, or Jimi Hendrix. Those are the two guitarists that I probably loved the most. And the element that they brought into guitar playing was, obviously amazing guitar playing, but also an element of chaos, an element of being slightly out of control. Sometimes When you edit it out, you end up losing a little bit of that chaos feeling. That’s something that we’ve been trying to balance a little bit. It’s difficult because it’s so tempting to try to tighten everything. There was a bit of that on certain tracks. Something like ‘You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween,’ for example, is much more on the tighter side.".

In the Classic Rock Magazine, Mark Beaumont descibred You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween as a "church organ-led tech-rocker", while Alt Note Magazine labeled the song as being electro-experimental.[4]. Riff Magazine had this to say about the song; "The jumpy electro-rock number feels more in line with the band’s later work—booming percussion, synths, riffs and a blistering guitar solo. With an ’80s pop aesthetic and a modern alt-rock foundation, the track is fun, unusual and stands out from the rest of the album."[5] According to fans, the song is giving a strong resemblance and is paying tribute to Muse's classics such such as Map of the Problematique, Big Freeze and Megalomania, while also having a heavy 80s tinge to it, akin to the output from Simulation Theory.

On August 23rd, 2022, it was announced that the song would be released as a single, due to be out on August 26th, together with the album itself.

Instrumentation

Starting out with an iconic 80s drum sound with gated reverb, and a church organ, it also includes a vocoded vocal and a guitar synth, similar to the one used in Compliance. In terms of instruments the verses are kept simple, with just a synth bass playing over the drum beat. The song also features a guitar solo, likely inspired by that of Van Halen, from Michael Jackson's song Beat It. Despite the song being an 80s-inspired one, it features live drums. According to producer Aleks Von Korff, the reverbs used on the drums for this song are the EMT250 and the SPX90. Plug-in wise, Baby Audio's Super VHS and Universal Audio's Capitol Chambers were also used. 10+ different combinations of drums were tested out prior to settling on what's heard on the final product.[6]

The outro features the famous ascending scale from the intro of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", played by both Matt on the organ and Chris on the bass.

Throughout the song, audio samples (including screams) inspired by old halloween movies, such as Dracula, appear. These are most notable during the second pre-chorus, where Matt's pitched-down voice sings the line "There's is nothing I can do to escape", and at the end, where a voice says "But you are the caretaker".

Live

Lyrics

You got me checking my mirror

You make me feel like I'm on the run Where'd you hide the gun? The kitchen knife in your hand Are you the poison, are you the cure? I'm not so sure

I'm shackled, there is no way out I can't escape

When you turn out the lights You make me feel like it's Halloween, it's Halloween When you skulk 'round the house You make me feel like it's Halloween, it's Halloween

You cut me off from my friends You cut me off from my family I'm in misery (I'm your number one fan) Each day I fall to my knees I see the writing is on the wall Now I'm in withdrawal

I'm shackled, there is no way out (There's is nothing I can do to escape) I can't escape

When you turn out the lights You make me feel like it's Halloween, it's Halloween The way you skulk 'round the house You make me feel like it's Halloween, it's Halloween

Ahhh

When you turn out the lights You make me feel like it's Halloween, it's Halloween When you skulk 'round the house You make me feel like it's Halloween, it's Halloween

I see your eye in the keyhole I feel like it's Halloween It's Halloween Won't reset until I'm possessed You make me feel like it's Halloween, it's Halloween

(But you are the caretaker)

References

  1. ↑ https://wontstanddown.muse.mu/api/v1/catalogue/new/
  2. ↑ https://www.qobuz.com/nl-nl/album/will-of-the-people-muse/k02hnfrjhdxrc
  3. ↑ https://www.nme.com/big-reads/muse-cover-interview-2022-will-of-the-people-3243209
  4. ↑ https://www.altnotemag.com/reviews/muse-will-of-the-people-album-review/
  5. ↑ https://riffmagazine.com/album-reviews/muse-will-of-the-people/
  6. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/ChsyfrEPC-w/
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