Guilty Pleasure No. 41: The Dead Are After Me (Raiders of the Living Dead), performed by George Edward Ott

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you watched Raiders of the Living Dead earlier today, you heard this theme song:

The dead are after me….

We are the Raiders of the Living Dead….

Seriously, how can you not love that!? Yes, the song is totally mid-80s and it’s kind of silly but it’s also kind of perfect. Certainly, it’s the best thing about the film and the song has even gone on to achieve a life outside of the movie that it was written for. There are bands that regularly cover this song. It’s a permanent part of my Halloween playlist.

Seriously, you can ask my friends and they’ll tell you that, every October, they’re forced to listen to me sing this song in my off-key way. The deeeeeeeead are afterrrrrr meeeeee….

Many sites incorrectly refer to this song as being called, like the movie in which it appeared, “Raiders of the Living Dead.” The actual title is The Dead Are After Me. It was written and performed by a musician named George Edward Ott. I did some research and I came across some comments that Ott left on another site, in which he discussed how this song came into existence. From Morgan on Media:

In 1986, after viewing early outtakes of the film with Sam Sherman and Tim Ferrante, I went home and wrote the song in about 15 minutes. Cheesy song for a cheesy movie!

Yes, it is a cheesy song but it’s also rather brilliant in a cheerful, no apologies sort of way. Just try to get out of your head.

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