Coming off the previous year’s double-album III, Sebadoh contented themselves in 1992 with the release of two mini-albums, Rocking the Forest and the confusingly titled Sebadoh vs Helmet, which is neither a shared LP with the New York band of the same name or tribute album to them, but rather a series of re-recordings of earlier material. Because this was the American Underground music scene, both records were inevitably packaged together and, just in time for Christmas, sold as a bumper compilation album called Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock.
Vampire was originally recorded for Rocking the Forest. I really like it though I could be guilty of reading the song literally as the feelings and thoughts of an actual vampire at the moment when his mark dies and becomes a vampire themself - thus breaking the ties of lust and hunger that bind them while the new vampire makes their own visits and prefacing an endless and loveless union as another vampire walks the earth looking for others to feed on. It’s like any long-term romantic union; Dracula always appears the suave, sexy suitor when scratching at the window and (love)biting the neck of some buxom, dark-eyed, virginal innocent in her bed, but the moment they become one of his brides, he’s being heavy-handed and moaning at them to leave his things alone.
Without lapsing into gothic melodrama, Sebadoh include some clever twists on the vampire legend by referencing shadows and reflections, neither of which a vampire can cast. However, the more likely reading of the song is the recognition that the man is guilty of trapping his partner into an abusive relationship and an acknowledgement of the ways in which his behaviour and suffocating love have caused his partner to become submissive and trapped within the confines of the relationship. It’s quite a depressing picture that is painted in that while reflecting that he should let his lover go free to rediscover herself, he cannot commit to letting it happen due to the sad truth that he rises by her falling:
My life cuts her up/An evil way to build me strong.
The power he holds over her is his lifeblood and for all the recognition that he is destroying her, he cannot let it go, at least not until his lover finds her own resolution either to board up the doors against him or fashion a stake to his heart. And just like the fate of thousands-year old vampires in fiction, one feels that death would be a release for all parties.
Video courtesy of toiletfromhell
Lyrics copyright of Lou Barlow
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