Indie rock stalwarts Matt Pond PA resurrect the past with the never-before-seen 2005 video for “Halloween,” a wistful, heart-aching standout from 2005’s beloved, autumnal, and quietly aching ‘Several Arrows Later.’ Released today alongside the album’s 20th Anniversary reissue – a lush double-vinyl and digital edition featuring new acoustic versions, demos, and rarities – it arrives just in time for the season’s best (or worst) Halloween parties, as well as the band’s upcoming U.S. anniversary tour.
Stream: “Halloween” – Matt Pond PA
I heard it’s modern to be stupid. You don’t need to talk to look good…
* * *
There’s a strange magic in nostalgia – in the way memory blurs and burns, softens and glows.
Matt Pond PA’s newly unearthed video for “Halloween” captures that bittersweet haze perfectly. Shot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn two decades ago and never before released, it’s a tender time capsule from the early 2000s – all flickering lights, wood-paneled walls, and quiet yearning beneath the surface of a small-town dance.
Went to where the people
were on a Saturday night
Seems like it always seems
Where I go, I want to leave
I thought we were doing
fine with our lives
There are people who will tell you
There is always something better
If you don’t know or care, you’ll be alright
I heard it’s modern to be stupid
You don’t need to talk to look good
I surprised myself
as my mouth started speaking
There is nothing left of my nerves
As I lean over to ask her
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering the music video for “Halloween,” the opening track off Matt Pond PA’s sixth studio album Several Arrows Later. Released in 2005, Several Arrows Later remains one of the band’s most beloved and enduring works – a record that captured the angst and wonder of mid-2000s indie rock through lush arrangements, tender melodies, and lyrical introspection. “Halloween” set the tone for the album’s world of intimate aching and self-reflection, pairing Pond’s warm, wistful vocals with strings, piano, and glowing guitar lines that seemed to radiate between melancholy and hope.
“I wrote ‘Halloween’ after a failed Halloween party in Brooklyn,” Matt Pond tells Atwood Magazine. “The problem wasn’t the party – it was me. I was dressed up as a second-rate reporter in an ill-fitting suit trying to leave my skin. Later, I went home to my green room, lay flat on my bed, and wrote the song while staring at the ceiling.”
There’s a weary honesty to the song’s chorus, where Pond sings, “Pardon the intrusion, could we leave before it gets bad?” It’s a line caught somewhere between vulnerability and escape – the confession of someone who doesn’t quite fit the moment they’re in. Beneath its self-deprecating humor lies a longing to connect without the performance of belonging, to step outside the noise and find stillness with someone who understands. In just a few words, Pond captures the awkward poetry of isolation and the fragile, human hope of being seen.
Pardon the intrusion
Could we leave before it gets bad?
I might smash up all these windows
And set fire to the curtains
Until it goes on and eats it
with its blue and red orange
Until the fire burns and eats it
with its blue and red orange
A haunting time capsule of longing and disconnection, the “Halloween” music video embodies the same stirring spirit that defines the song itself.
The scene unfolds in an old dance hall. A small disco ball spins lazily at the center of the room; guitars rest against their amps, the bar glows faintly with twinkling light, and streamers hang half-heartedly from the walls. People filter in for what should be a celebration, but the air feels heavy – like everyone’s just pretending to have a good time. They make small talk, sip their drinks, and shuffle their feet, each one seemingly out of place. The mood is forced, a little awkward, a little melancholy.
The band plays. Couples dance. For a fleeting moment – as Pond sings, “I heard it’s modern to be stupid / You don’t need to talk to look good” – the tension breaks. Everyone seems to loosen up, find connection, or at least distraction. For a second, the world fades away. But like all good nights, it ends quietly; the crowd drifts off, and Pond and his partner remain – the last two souls left in the room, caught between intimacy and isolation.
If you don’t know or care,
you’ll be alright
I heard it’s modern to be stupid
You don’t need a thought to look good
Pardon the intrusion
Could we leave before it gets bad?
I might smash up all the windows
And set fire to the curtains
“I don’t know how it happened, but we never released the video for ‘Halloween,’” Pond shares. “We shot it in Williamsburg, just down the street from my apartment at the time. Watching it now, it feels like a perfect snapshot of that era – the posturing, the quiet unease, the strange performance of trying to belong.”
“I loved living in New York, but I never quite felt like I measured up. There’s a kind of loneliness in that – a crowded room where you feel invisible. And yet, underneath all of it, there’s still this thread of hope – the belief that you might find someone who sees you anyway.”
It’s that thread of hope, soft and steady, that gives “Halloween” its enchanting glow. Beneath the melancholy, there’s movement – a restless pulse that keeps the song from collapsing into despair. Pond doesn’t wallow; he observes, he endures, and in doing so, he reminds us that longing itself can be a kind of light. The song lingers in the in-between, caught between belonging and isolation, connection and detachment, capturing that deeply human desire to be seen, even when you’re not sure you deserve to be.
Sonically, “Halloween” remains one of Matt Pond PA’s most beloved songs – a gentle, dreamy, aching indie rock reverie that floats between self-awareness and sincerity. Pond’s warm, vulnerable voice carries both ache and humor, while piano, violin, and guitars weave together a bittersweet spell of intimacy and reflection. The song feels both zoomed-in and zoomed-out – deeply personal and effortlessly universal.
There’s a kind of loneliness in that – a crowded room where you feel invisible. And yet, underneath all of it, there’s still this thread of hope – the belief that you might find someone who sees you anyway.
* * *
First released in 2005, Several Arrows Later marked a defining moment for Matt Pond PA – cementing the band’s reputation for crafting lush, emotionally intelligent indie rock that sits somewhere between folk introspection and cinematic warmth.
Its songs, including “Halloween,” “So Much Trouble,” and “Spring Provides,” became fixtures in the mid-2000s indie canon, inspiring countless listeners and songwriters alike.
Now, twenty years later, Pond has revisited the record for a special anniversary edition – a limited-edition double vinyl and digital release featuring all-new acoustic versions, demos, and previously unreleased material. It’s both a tribute to the past and an act of renewal: a way of returning to the heart of what made these songs resonate in the first place.
“Philadelphia gave me my first sense of meaning, New York carried it further,” Pond reflects. “I stopped being born to lose and started believing in the world around me. Over time, the purpose shifted – spinning all the way back to where it began – an offering without pretense, an undertaking without worrying about the casket.
“The original album wouldn’t have happened without Eve Miller, Brian Pearl, Dan Crowell, and Louie Lino. For a couple of years, we had the right kind of friction. I loved our arguments at the Bearsville Barn, with Turtle Creek murmuring in the background. We were pushing the songs where they needed to go.”
“These days, Chris Hansen helps bring the songs to life. His musicianship and engineering steady the swerving way I write. Hilary James returns the cello back to the frame. Anya Marina and John Courage add variation and color.”
Two decades after Several Arrows Later first left its mark on the indie landscape, Matt Pond PA are bringing its world back to life onstage.
This November, Pond and his band will embark on the Several Arrows Later 20th Anniversary Tour, performing across the Northeast and Midwest with support from longtime collaborators Anya Marina and Bathtub Cig. It’s a chance for fans to step back into that world of tender reflection and radiant melancholy, to hear beloved songs like “Halloween” and “So Much Trouble” take on new life in the present tense – still resonant, still full of feeling.
Time has a way of deepening the meaning of certain songs, and “Halloween” is one of them. What once felt like a snapshot of loneliness now reads as something more openhearted and forgiving – a portrait of self-awareness, connection, and the search for grace in imperfection. As Pond revisits these songs twenty years later, there’s a sense of gratitude and wonder running through it all, a recognition of how much life can change while the emotions that shape it remain the same.
Went to where the people
were on a Saturday night
Seems like it always seems
Where I go, I want to leave
I surprised myself as my mouth started speaking
There is nothing left of my nerves
As I lean over to ask her
Pardon the intrusion
Could we leave before it gets bad?
I might smash up all these windows
And set fire to the curtains
Until it goes on and eats it
with its blue and red orange
Until the fire burns and eats it
with its blue and red orange
“Pardon the intrusion, could we leave before it gets bad?” Pond once sang, half-pleading, half-smiling – a line that feels just as human now as it did twenty years ago. Yet while we all leave the party eventually, the songs stick with us – including this one. Watch the world premiere of “Halloween,” twenty years late and right on time, exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
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:: stream/purchase Several Arrows Later here ::
:: connect with Matt Pond PA here ::
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Stream: “Halloween” – Matt Pond PA
Several Arrows Later 20th Anniversary
Tour Dates
11/6 – Fallout Shelter • Norwood, MA
11/7 – Falcon • Marlboro, NY
11/8 – West Art • Lancaster, PA
11/9 – The Treelawn • Cleveland, OH
11/10 – SPACE • Evanston, IL
11/12 – Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co • Milwaukee, WI
11/13 – The Parkway Theater • Minneapolis, MN
11/14 – Kiki’s House of Righteous Music • Madison, WI
1/16 – Spinster Abbott’s • St. Augustine, FL
1/17 – Blue Jay Listening Room • Jacksonville Beach, FL
1/18 – The Lynx Books • Gainesville, FL
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© Jesse Dufault
© Jesse Dufault:: Stream Matt Pond PA ::
