The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham news and links for Friday, October 28

Good morning everyone! Your tolerated HIC will be off hoddling duties Monday and Tuesday next week. But it doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a Halloween track!

There are some great Halloween songs out there. And yes, Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London is one of them. But Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner is better. Still, it isn’t as trippy as today’s Track of the Day.

I present to you Vanilla Fudge’s cover of the Donovan song, Season of the Witch.

His take was more psychadelic. A little spooky, of course, but more jammy. The Scottish singer said it was “kind of a prophetic song”, pointing to the British drug bust in the 60s. And I never considered this to be a witchy song - “Those hippies are out to make it rich” felt more like young artists making music.

Vanilla Fudge covered the song the year after it was released. The group had done some trippy versions of classics before this - You Keep Me Hangin’ On, Ticket To Ride, Eleanor Rigby.

But this cover of Season of the Witch is the trippiest, and the creepiest.

It sounds nothing like the original, from the ominous opening. The organ does so much incredible work on this. It was a trademark of the Fudge.

Every note is sort of dragged out as they pull each line limb from limb, with that dark organ lingering behind. And it rapidly builds into something terrifying. Something so gothic. Whispers of “Help me”.

And then, a poetry reading:

And here we sit immerged in a liquid sea of love,

Shimmering rainbows in silver sky above,

A looking glass that reflects our past

Tied with seaweed all around like willows

What poor creature is tortuously trapped inside the story of this song? Such a thing must be suffering so.

And then it builds, the terror. The bloody terror. The chaos. That frenzied, dark, gothic, horrifying, cataclysmic conclusion.

It must be the season of the witch!

Happy early Halloween everyone!

Fitzie’s track of the day: Season of the Witch, by Vanilla Fudge

And now for your links

The Athletic ($$): Antonio Conte being left with no chance but to rest players

Dan KP: Marcus Edwards opens door to Premier League return

Arsenal defender Pablo Mari in hospital after Milan supermarket stabbing

Erik Ten Hag says he’s not afraid to fix ‘showboating’ Antony

Bournemouth to stop playing Kanye West song after rapper’s anti-Semitism scandal