"Halloween" is the seventh and final single by the Dead Kennedys

Dead Kennedys

Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978. The band became part of the American hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s. They gained a large underground fanbase in the international punk music scene....

. It was released in December 1982 on Alternative Tentacles

Alternative Tentacles

Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label originally based in San Francisco, California and was established in 1979. It was originally used as the label name by the Dead Kennedys for the self-produced single "California Über Alles", and after realizing the potential for an independent...

. The lyrics use the metaphor of a Halloween party to address the theme of human responses to nonconformity

Nonconformity

Nonconformity may refer to:* Nonconformity , a memoir by Nelson Algren, published posthumously in 1992* Nonconformity , a term in quality management* A type of unconformity in geology...

.The song is from the band's second album, Plastic Surgery Disasters

Plastic Surgery Disasters

Plastic Surgery Disasters is the second album released by the Dead Kennedys. It has been reissued with the EP In God We Trust, Inc., which are the last eight tracks on the CD. The cover photo is "Hands" by photographer Michael Wells. The same photo was used by other San Francisco based punk band...

.

"Saturday Night Holocaust" is a song comparing drug-filled disco

Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

 culture in the 70's and early 80's to cabaret

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

 culture in Nazi Germany, namely in the case of the apathy towards the governments actions. It ends with a modern version of the Nazi's persecution of the cabaret, and can in some ways be seen as a sort of companion to "California Über Alles

California Über Alles

"California Über Alles" was the first single by the Dead Kennedys. The record was released in June 1979 on Optional Music with "The Man with the Dogs" as the b-side...

" ("a Hitler youth in a jogging suit smiling face branded round his arm" can be seen as a re-appearance of the hippie-nazis of the aforementioned song).