nineveh_uk: Illustration that looks like Harriet Vane (Harriet)
nineveh_uk ([personal profile] nineveh_uk) wrote2015-10-19 10:48 am

Total Eclipse of the Heart with Vampires

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!

[identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com 2015-10-19 11:58 am (UTC)(link)
I was very interested to hear about the Nosferatu connection - I knew the song featured in Tanz der Vampire because I translated some changes to the text last year and was very surprised to stumble across Total Eclipse of the Heart in the middle. If it was always a vampire song, that makes more sense (inasmuch as the song makes any sense at all, that is).

[identity profile] nineveh-uk.livejournal.com 2015-10-19 01:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I bet it was extremely surprising to sit in the theatre when it first came out and suddenly find yourself listening to Total Eclipse of the Heart! I think it does work - the original English lyrics, while odd, are not particularly incongruous if they're still in your head (unlike "Arthur Fonzarelli's got an army of clones"), and the German ones (thank you Google translate) seem fairly reasonable for a vampire song. Or possibly the lyrics are a minor detail in the face of the overall concept.

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.