Total Eclipse of the Heart with Vampires
Oct. 19th, 2015 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Did you know that Total Eclipse of the Heart was originally written as a love-song for a never-happened musical version of Nosferatu? Me neither. Nor did I know that it had subsequently been used in a different musical, the Austrian Tanz der Vampire (link in English), a musical version of Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, of which I was a teenage fan* in my ‘read/watch everything about vampires’ stage.
I learned this fact at the end of last week, and inevitably therefore have been enlivening working through the massive ironing backlog** while watching said musical on YouTube. Fortunately I don’t know Meat Loaf’s oeuvre, so I haven’t spotted the songs recycled from that. It’s all magnificently bonkers and surprisingly entertaining, and I really want to see it live, except that would mean going to Germany because there was a disastrously re-written Broadway production in the early 2000s that has torpedoed any further English language attempts for the foreseeable future. Anyway, Total Eclipse of the Heart makes far more sense once it’s about vampires, the German version would be an amazing karaoke duet, here it is. This version doesn’t have subtitles, but you don’t really need them to get the sense of the massive OTT-ness, complete with swirly cape action.
Sadly I fear the literal video version of this song, fun as it is, would be less engaging:
(Long intro)
Sometimes in the night I wander round on the stage and there’s nothing much to do.
(Long intro)
Sometimes in the night the audience wishes that something else would happen on stage.
(Long intro)
Sometimes in the night I cling onto a pillar that looks randomly like a totem pole.
Etc.
*I have also just realised that the plot of TFVK is a sort of mirror version of Keats’ Eve of St Agnes.
**All summer clothes now washed, ironed, and put away, hurrah!
I learned this fact at the end of last week, and inevitably therefore have been enlivening working through the massive ironing backlog** while watching said musical on YouTube. Fortunately I don’t know Meat Loaf’s oeuvre, so I haven’t spotted the songs recycled from that. It’s all magnificently bonkers and surprisingly entertaining, and I really want to see it live, except that would mean going to Germany because there was a disastrously re-written Broadway production in the early 2000s that has torpedoed any further English language attempts for the foreseeable future. Anyway, Total Eclipse of the Heart makes far more sense once it’s about vampires, the German version would be an amazing karaoke duet, here it is. This version doesn’t have subtitles, but you don’t really need them to get the sense of the massive OTT-ness, complete with swirly cape action.
Sadly I fear the literal video version of this song, fun as it is, would be less engaging:
(Long intro)
Sometimes in the night I wander round on the stage and there’s nothing much to do.
(Long intro)
Sometimes in the night the audience wishes that something else would happen on stage.
(Long intro)
Sometimes in the night I cling onto a pillar that looks randomly like a totem pole.
Etc.
*I have also just realised that the plot of TFVK is a sort of mirror version of Keats’ Eve of St Agnes.
**All summer clothes now washed, ironed, and put away, hurrah!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 10:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 10:58 am (UTC)Apparently there's going to be a production in Berlin in 2016 -I find myself suddenly contemplating a central European holiday for next summer.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 10:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-20 10:34 am (UTC)Ev'ry now and then I see a furry brown creature with a long and pointy nose.
(Wimbledon) Etc.
Then there's that well-know Regency era crossover, Total Eclipse of the Heart with Wombatts.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-20 03:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-20 03:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 11:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 01:55 pm (UTC)I think you mentioned that you had done some translation for Tanz der Vampire at some point. It would be nice to think that meant it might get a UK production, but I suspect not.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 12:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 01:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 02:16 pm (UTC)I had known 'Sur som Rognebaer' for years without knowing it had any connection to the song called 'Fire on the Mountain' I had vaguely heard of, until the latter came on the radio one day. It was surprisingly mindboggling!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-20 10:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-19 02:43 pm (UTC)Have you encountered Ankaret's https://archiveofourown.org/works/300733 (The Doves and the Ravens)?
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-20 10:41 am (UTC)I had not seen that fic, thank you! How brilliantly weird.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-20 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-20 06:47 pm (UTC)Because I spent the 80s not being into pop music, I was mostly unfamiliar with Meat Loaf, so naturally I have been matching up the musical numbers with their originals courtesy of Wikipedia and YouTube. So...
Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are - miles better as a vampire song.
Original Sin - becomes two vampire songs (as with the above, the odd line is retained but in new contexts. This actually works.)
Seize the Night - becomes the overture. Ed. No - it's the other way round! That one appeared in the musical first, and then went to Meat Loaf.
I am beginning to wonder if anyone has tried feeding Meat Loaf garlic. But really I have fallen in love with the whole ridiculous thing. It is mad, but it works. It is the ultimate answer of "Yes!" to the question as to whether pop songs can be repurposed for the stage. They can, triumphantly (or in the case of Broadway, disastrously, because they lost the whole concept). Oh dear. I find myself seriously considering a trip to Germany next summer. A I stop in Berlin for a weekend before heading off to the Alps for some hiking could work nicely...
Also, there needs to be a musical/TEotH Video crossover.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-21 01:27 pm (UTC)The video for "Total Eclipse" is so bizarre. I just sort of assumed that half of those schoolboys were in fact vampires--or possibly that Bonnie Tyler herself was a vampire. It's a relief to have at least part of those suspicions confirmed!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-22 11:36 am (UTC)There is something reassuring about learning that yes, there was intention in the total weirdness. Although the schoolboys are not entirely explained...
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-22 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-11-05 10:05 pm (UTC)My university parties seemed to involve vast quantities of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights...