The Rules of Halloween

Keep your lantern lit. 🕯️ 🎃 ABOUT THIS SONG Long before the pumpkin, there was the turnip. On Samhain night in old Ireland, lanterns were carved from turnips — to light the way home, and to keep the wandering dark polite. And the night had rules: keep your lantern burning, wear your guise so the night can't learn your name, leave sweets out for every ghost who's come before, and be in before the midnight bell. Velvet has kept those rules for three hundred years. Every Halloween the little keeper of the lanes walks his rounds to check them — small boots, low lantern, the oldest eyes on the oldest street — and tips his turnip light to the houses that remember. Subscribe for a new story every night. 🎵 LYRICS [Intro] One night a year the veil runs thin, one night a year he checks us in — small boots on the doorstep, lantern low, and a list of rules you'd better know. [Verse 1] He's no bigger than a fence-post shadow, hood up high and his lantern swinging, walks every street where the pumpkins glow while the whole town's out there singing. He don't knock loud and he don't say please, he just looks at your door and he knows — whether you kept the old rules tonight by the light in your windows' glow. [Chorus] Light the lantern, let it burn, wear your guise so the night can't learn your name! Leave the sweets out by the door for every ghost who's come before — play the game! Mind the graves and mind your tongue, the night is old and the night is young — keep the rules, keep the rules, till the midnight bell is rung! [Verse 2] There was a house at the end of our street said "we don't do that anymore" — no bowl of sweets, no lantern lit, just a lock and a darkened door. He stood a while in the garden gate, and the wind went out of the trees, and all night long their doorbell rang with nobody there to see. [Chorus] Light the lantern, let it burn, wear your guise so the night can't learn your name! Leave the sweets out by the door for every ghost who's come before — play the game! Mind the graves and mind your tongue, the night is old and the night is young — keep the rules, keep the rules, till the midnight bell is rung! [Verse 3] And a boy took his lantern and blew it out — "I'm done, it's cold, it's late" — and the dark came down like a closing door all the way from the graveyard gate. He ran home fast with his costume torn and his heart like a drum in his ears — some things you only have to learn once, and it stays with you all your years. [Bridge] He comes to my door every year, and I've kept the rules so long — my lantern's been burning three hundred years, and my bowl's full, and my mask is on. He looks at me, and I look at him, and he tips that turnip light — the oldest eyes on the oldest street, keeping the rules of the night. [Final Chorus] Light the lantern, let it burn, wear your guise so the night can't learn your name! Leave the sweets out by the door for every ghost who's come before — play the game! Mind the graves and mind your tongue, the night is old and the night is young — keep the rules, keep the rules, till the midnight bell is rung! Keep the rules, keep the rules — till the midnight bell is rung! [Outro] One night a year the veil runs thin… small boots, going home in the dark… he'll be back next year, darling — keep your lantern lit.