♫Disco Danse Macabre♫

Okay, kids, you're too young to remember this, but during the Middle Ages there was this notion of the Dance of Death, or, as the French would have it, the Danse Macabre. To be clear, although there are dead (or Death) in the dance, it's not a dance of the dead (sorry, animated skeletons). It's a dance of the dead (or Death) with various representatives of living, leading the living to (lowercase-d) death. After all, there's only one way this story ends, kids, for everyone. A universal constant.

And like many religiously tinged notions from the middle ages, there's art. And more art. And, later, music. And more music.

Fenris knows all this, of course, and decided to turn it into a disco song! So break out your bell bottoms, pull that pull tab off that Tab, and get ready to dance!

One Halloween, seeking hub and bub
I went down to the disco club

I looked around and saw shapes and masks The bass was pumping and the vibe was fast

Associating Danse Macabre with Halloween is a modern invention, but it's common nowadays and this is part of Fenris' Halloween Challenge. And it's fun! Like a masquerade ball!

Then the Dj said, "Midnight has arrived Remove your masks, show who's alive" When we took them off, like the DJ said Half of the room was dead, man, dead [Chorus]

Now it's getting good! The Danse runs from midnight to dawn. So far the narrator's showing off his moves with the Hustle and the Waacking, but now it's the Hearse Stop, a rather different dance indeed.

Skeletons they jump and jive No one here is stayin alive The beat keeps time without a fail And pounds like a hammer on a coffin nail

The lyrics are full of descriptions of how the musics reanimates the dead. And this year (2026), Halloween falls on a Saturday Night. Ah, ah, ah, ah, so cure with cowbell and do your best to stay alive as long as you can.

Time is strange and feet are numb "Last call" simply doesn't come Dazzling lights show one and all They don't reflect on the mirror ball

Pull the masks off and the shapes become reality - or, rather, take over reality. Time is strange and the lights aren't real. It's a phantasmic experience.

The dance ends with the cockerel's crow They look around "It's time to go" The dawn comes, the doors open wide And I'm the last one left alive

Everyone else is dead by dawn. Why the narrator is spared is a mystery. But Fenris often likes a little twist at the end.

Just perfect.