I find Halloween scary. Nowadays, between the likelihood of somebody knocking on my door and the higher-than-normal chance of seeing a clown, I am on edge on October 31st.
As a kid, even the reward of copious free candy wasn’t enough to get me excited about Halloween. It was often too cold, too loud, and almost every single year while trick-or-treating, I would fall up somebody’s wet-leaf-coated front steps. If I made it up the stairs, I would knock on someone’s door and, absolutely petrified, not say a word. If my timing was right, I would join a gaggle of kids and they would do the shouting for me (Them: “TRICK OR TREAT!” Me: *inaudible mumbling*).
“spooktober,” a track from Maxime Trippenbach aka maxime.’s latest release pity party, isn’t about Halloween-induced fear specifically, but it is about feeling scared and subsequently overcoming that feeling. Throughout this moody, bedroom-pop track, maxime. reflects on a time when he waded through blood like a vampire in ecstasy. Except now things are different: “I don’t taste the blood anymore when I bite my tongue, like before,” he repeats. As “spooktober” continues to unfold, maxime. proves that he isn’t scared any longer by suggesting reckless date ideas (like stealing a car and assuming a new identity) to a girl he’s trying to woo. The contrast between what was and what is makes an otherwise simple song into a tasty treat and serves as a reminder that sometimes it is possible to overcome your fears. Maybe this year when the trick-or-treaters inevitably come knocking on my door, I’ll have the nerve to answer it.
