Day After Day #285: Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) (1990)

Concrete Blonde is one of those bands that I always liked but never really dug into. I knew the songs I heard on the radio by them and I always appreciated Johnette Napolitano's vocals, but that was the extent of my Concrete Blonde knowledge. I did see them play a song when I attended a live taping of Late Night with David Letterman in 1992 as well.

The band was formed in Hollywood in 1982 with Napolitano on vocals and bass and James Mankey, former bassist of Sparks, on guitar, later adding drummer Michael Murphy. The band was originally called Dreamers and then Dream 6, but when they signed to I.R.S. Records in 1986, labelmate Michael Stipe suggested the name Concrete Blonde. Harry Rushakoff took over on drums for the first album. They got some attention with "Still in Hollywood" from their self-titled debut and "God is a Bullet" from their second album Free.

It was their third album, 1990's Bloodletting, that was the band's breakout thanks to "Joey," a ballad that hit #1 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and #19 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was everywhere, so much so that I got sick of hearing it at the time. The band was joined by Paul Thompson of Roxy Music on drums, filling in for Rushakoff, who was in treatment for drug addiction.

But the first song on the album, "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)," really captures the gothic mood of the collection and also makes it a perfect song for Halloween. Between Napolitano's chilling vocals and Mankey's sinister guitar riff, the song evokes the right amount of creep.

"There's a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed/There's a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed/Oh, you were a vampire and baby, I'm a walking dead/Oh, you were a vampire and baby, I'm a walking dead."

This leads into a gang vocal chorus: "I got the ways and means to New Orleans/I'm going down by the river where it's warm and green/I'm gonna have a drink and walk around/I got a lot to think about, oh yeah."

The song slinks along as Napolitano figures out her vampire problem.

"They used to dance in the garden/In the middle of the night/Dancin' out in the garden/In the middle of the night/Oh, you were a vampire and I may never see the light/Oh, you were a vampire and I may never see the light."

The album went gold, hitting #49 on the Billboard 200 and #4 in Canada. A 2010 reissue of the album included a French version of the title track, which adds heavier guitar and mixes French and English lyrics.

Concrete Blonde contributed a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" to the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack, and then followed up with 1992's Walking in London and 1993's Mexican Moon, but the albums didn't sell well and the band broke up in '94. Napolitano and Mankey reunited in 1997, teaming up with the band Los Illegals for an album and tour. Concrete Blonde reunited again in 2001 and released two more albums over the following few years.