As we trek closer towards Halloween, we continue our Rocktober celebration of the '60s and, now, spooky songs. You may or may not have noticed that I haven't featured a song by The Who yet. This was intentional, as I was saving The Who for Halloween week, and specifically their song "Boris The Spider."
Included on the group's 1966 album A Quick One, "Boris The Spider" was written and sung by bassist John Entwistle. The story behind the song is that he and Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman were hanging out and drinking one night -- presumably at some meeting of mod bassists -- and they were coming up with funny names for animals. Boris is a funny name for a spider, certainly outside of Russia, so Entwistle wrote the song in six minutes, or approximately three and a half minutes longer than the song itself.
In addition to being a fun and campy horror song, the chorus is considered one of the first instances of the so-called "death growl" in popular music. That vocal technique would, of course, gain wider use in death metal and several related genres, like deathcore and grindcore. The bassline in the song is also very metal-esque.
"Boris The Spider" is a song that should be included in any Halloween party mix, in my opinion. My kids like this song enough that, when we had a huge spider who had made a web on our front porch a few weeks ago, they named it Boris.
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