Audiophiles: Songs that make me feel like the witch I want to be when I grow up

Lydia McKelvie | Staff Writer

Do you like wearing black, chanting in dark languages, hanging out with cats and frightening men? Then I have good news for you! Being a witch is always a valid post-grad plan and an even more valid Halloween costume. These songs will help you feel like the witch you’ve wanted to be all along.

Josh Zucker | Student Life

“Big God” by Florence and the Machine

If anyone is the Supreme here, it’s Florence Welch. To see some real witch vibes, watch the music video for this song and fall under Welch’s spell. Clocking in at around five minutes, it’s a masterpiece that leaves the listener with more questions than answers, with its deceptively simple lyrics and lingering outbursts of emotion. This song, haunting and guttural, is perfect for letting loose and making all of this fall into the sea. In other words, great for a girls’ night!

“Bottom of the River” by Delta Rae

If you’re looking for a more vengeful witch vibe, this song is perfect for the aforementioned frightening of men. Delta Rae sings as a super scary, super Southern witch who’s been caught in her ritual. It’s loud, brassy and unapologetically chilling. It’s also popular with the a cappella community as a song to cover, so for some of that, check out Vocal Rush’s cover from “The Sing-Off” or a version from one of the many Wash. U. groups that have covered it over the years!

“NFWMB” by Hozier

Honestly any of Hozier’s songs could be sung by someone in love with a witch, but this song has an especially witchy vibe. It was released as a single in tandem with his recent album, “Wasteland Baby!” (which I still haven’t gotten over and probably never will). It’s a song about a tragic love—an infatuation with a dangerous woman that might just eat the singer alive. If that isn’t some seriously sinister witch energy, I don’t know what is!

“Nighttime Hunger” by Overcoats

This more upbeat and modern song is for those chic city witches going out with their ghoul-friends on a Friday night. “When the darkness comes,” the members of this cool coven take the town and find their next victim. Electronic and hypnotic, this is the kind of song that might play at a nightclub exclusively for Halloween monsters.

“Raise Hell” by Brandi Carlile

Not every witch is a city-slicker, though. Some prefer a simpler way of doing things, in the country where they can’t be bothered. That’s the issue for Carlile in this song—when love comes in and seems to threaten the power and independence she holds dear, she has to make a choice. To be honest, I feel her. Cuffing season can be like that sometimes.

“Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby” from the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack

I have to give the final spot on the playlist to some good old-fashioned witchery. A classic piece of cinema that hits my Southern heart heavily, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” includes some wonderful Southern Gothic-esque mystical elements, not the least of which are the river witches that play a narrative role as sirens. Honestly, they’re inspiration for all of us aspirants to witchhood.

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