Songfacts®:

• Bauhaus bass player David J wrote this song's lyric after bingeing on vampire movies that were showing on TV in England (this was before Netflix). He and guitarist Daniel Ash were both watching these films, and got to talking about them one day on the phone when they were setting up a rehearsal.
  
  The next day, that conversation was in his head, and David started writing lyrics on the topic. In his Songfacts interview, he explained: "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.' It's so descriptive - it is about the vampire. 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."
• This was the first single from Bauhaus. The song, which is a very dark 9-minute epic on the death of a vampire, is considered the true start of the gothic subculture. The song's horror-esque lyrics along with the many eerie effects and monotone sound were standards for the rise of gothic music.
  
  Gothic is a style of architecture (as is Bauhaus), but when this song emerged, music journalists used the term to describe it. Lead singer Peter Murphy is not a fan of the term, as he feels it misrepresents their fans. He has pointed out that he's only a vampire when he's performing this song.
• You can spend a lot of time trying to re-create the distorted, ethereal sound on this song, but the band did it in one take without any tricks or editing. The distortion was generated by running the instruments through guitarist Daniel Ash's amp.
  
  Lead singer Peter Murphy explained in a 2002 SOMA interview: "We recorded 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' in the time that it took to play it, no second takes; and when I sang that, I was completely in touch with myself in a way that I'd never been before. It was the stuff of dreams, it was magical." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Gerrit - Belfast, Northern Ireland, for above 2
• Bela Lugosi was an actor famous for his portrayal of Dracula. Among other things, this song helped associate goths and vampires. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Jeff - San Jose, CA
• The song came together very quickly in the studio. After David J wrote the lyric, he brought it to rehearsal that night and turned it over to lead signer Peter Murphy, who came up with the vocal melody. That band ran through the song, coming up with their instrumental parts on the fly in a fit of inspiration. A few weeks later, they made a proper recording of the song that ended up being very similar to that first run-through.
• This was the first song Peter Murphy recorded, and his first take is the one that stuck. In a Songfacts interview, he said: "It felt quite certainly to me - and we all felt it - magical and quite 'us' - natural and, as for all our songs and performances and attitude, a genuine original, whole event as a band never before seen or heard of, I as lead frontman a rare natural and effortless star. An unmissable 'got to see this guy' one off. Yet I was in fact a part of a group of four crucial members of a final group identity. All very cool."
• This song earned the band a dark and mysterious reputation, but it's not typical of their work. "It was only representative of one aspect of that band," David J told us. "If you look at the whole catalogue, it's pretty diverse."
• Bauhaus perform this song in the opening sequence of the 1983 movie The Hunger, starring David Bowie. The film, appropriately, is an erotic vampire thriller.
  
  Peter Murphy starred in the original British version of the Maxell "Break The Sound Barrier" commercial as the guy getting literally blown away by the music. The spot was directed by Howard Guard, and when The Hunger director Tony Scott was on the prowl for a band to open his movie, Guard told him about Bauhaus. Scott saw them performed and knew right away they were perfect for the part. Murphy did not disappoint, bringing his distinctive prowl to the scene.
• Murphy has called this song the "'Stairway To Heaven' of the post-punk period."
• After breaking up in 1983, Bauhaus regrouped for a 1998 tour, then disbanded again until 2005, when they played the Coachella festival, where they opened their set with this song, performed by Peter Murphy while hanging upside down (punctuating the line, "The bats have left the bell tower"). Later that year, the group launched a tour; they returned to the road in 2006, but that was it for their live performances. They did release another album in 2008.
• This has been used in a number of TV shows and movies, typically in the horror genre. Among them:
  
  TV:
  Smallville ("Thirst" - 2005)
  One Tree Hill ("From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" - 2005)
  Fringe ("Midnight" - 2009)
  Supernatural ("Live Free or Twihard" - 2010)
  Eastbound & Down ("Chapter 16" - 2012)
  True Blood ("Death Is Not the End" - 2014)
  American Horror Story: Hotel ("Checking In" - 2015)
  
  Movies:
  Dead Man's Curve (1998)
  Good Luck Chuck (2007)
  The Collector (2009)
  Vampire Academy (2014)
• The French band Nouvelle Vague covered this for their 2006 album Bande à Part. This version was used in the 2007 movie Elvis and Anabelle.