Watch Massive Attack cover ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ by Bauhaus
There’s a certain pressure to a debut single. After spending months or years honing your sound in practice rooms and underground venues, it can be daunting to finally put something out into the world. For many artists, the first song they share will still be slightly underdeveloped or go underappreciated, but for Bauhaus, it would mark the beginning of an entire subculture.
Bauhaus refused to pull any punches with their debut. A nine-minute eerie epic about Dracula star Bela Lugosi, it underscored Peter Murphy’s vampiric storytelling with dub influences and twangy guitars. Over four decades later, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ remains not only one of the most important compositions within the gothic genre but is largely considered the first.
After watching a number of vampire films, bassist David J was inspired to write the song, which continually makes reference to its titular actor. “Bela Lugosi’s dead, undead, undead, undead,” vocalist Murphy repeats between lengthy allowances for ominous instrumentation. According to the songwriter, the song is about both the actor and the vampire he played.
“I came up with that first line, ‘White on white, translucent, black capes back on the rack.’ And it was like, ‘Oh, this is interesting,’” he recalled to Songfacts, “It’s so descriptive – it is about the vampire. But it’s also about the actor – it’s about retiring from the part, but then he sort of plays with the idea.”
“A vampire can never retire from being a vampire, because that’s for eternity,” he concluded. Between gothic imagery of bats, red velvet and capes, the song is filled to the brim with this sense of dread, in its uneasy instrumentation, in Murphy’s intense declarations, in lines like “bereft in deathly bloom, alone in a darkened room.”
The beautiful gothic classic has, like any all-time great song, been subject to a number of covers throughout the years. The likes of Nine Inch Nails and The Damned have taken on the track, but perhaps the most beautiful iteration, aside from the original, came from trip-hoppers Massive Attack.
At a 2019 show that also featured an appearance from gothic-adjacent singer Elizabeth Fraser and a tribute to The Cure, Massive Attack performed a surprisingly faithful rendition of ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’. Their take was just as gloomy as the original while retaining the cool control of their own sound, a masterful ode to a gothic classic.
Watch Massive Attack cover ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ by Bauhaus below.
