The Toadies intended "Possum Kingdom" to be a continuation of the story told in the song "I Burn". While they envisioned "I Burn" to be a story about cult members immolating themselves in order to ascend to a higher plane, "Possum Kingdom" was about one of the immolated people becoming "just smoke, and ...he goes to Possum Kingdom Lake and tries to find somebody to join him."

On November 22, 1997, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence surrendered to the "Devil Inside". He was found in his suite at Sydney's Ritz-Carlton hotel, suspended from a door hinge by a leather belt around his neck.

"This Is Halloween" is a song from the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas, with music and lyrics written by Danny Elfman. In the film it is performed by the residents of the fictional "Halloween Town", introducing their Halloween-centered lifestyle.

"Bela Lugosi's Dead" was English post-punk band Bauhaus's first single, written more than 23 years after the death of horror film star Bela Lugosi. It is often considered the first gothic rock record.

The music video to "Somebody's Watching Me" (which uses the radio edit instead of the album version) underscores the song's paranoid tone with a haunted house-inspired theme, including imagery of floating heads, ravens, graveyards, and shower scenes referencing Psycho.

MGM Records initially rejected "The Purple People Eater", but an acetate of the song reached MGM Records' New York office and became popular with the office's young people. Up to 50 employees would listen to the song at lunchtime. The front office noticed, reconsidered their decision, and decided to release the song.

In "Sympathy for the Devil", Mick Jagger sings in first person narrative as the Devil, boasting his role in each of several historical violent atrocities. The singer then ironically demands our courtesy towards him, implicitly chastising the listener for our collective culpability in the listed killings and crimes.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Shakira said that the idea for "She Wolf" came to her "very mysteriously", revealing "I was in the studio in a bad mood that day, then I got inspired and went to a corner and I wrote the lyrics and the melody in 10 minutes. The image of the she wolf just came to my head, and when I least expected it I was howling and panting."

The music video for "Bark at the Moon" borrows heavily from Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, depicting Ozzy Osbourne as a mad scientist who ingests a substance in his laboratory which causes him to transform into the werewolf.

John Fogerty takes listeners "way back in the swamp" in "Wicked Old Witch" which starts with an eerie banjo intro. The swamp rocker's baby daughter inspired this song with her fascination for the Wizard of Oz.