Review:

on 2011-02-21 CharlesMartel Said:

Way ahead of its time, I feel it has suffered somewhat through being associated with the founding of the Goth craze. Bauhaus were (initially at least) not Goths but post punks. As such, I am pretty certain they did not intend to have this track linked so inextricably with the gloomy despondency of Goth-kids. Nonetheless, when it became so, they abandoned themselves to Gothicism, something to which Peter Murphy was ably suited.

The song has a dual edge. It is almost tongue in cheek in that it deliberately mixes the real Bela Lugosi from the characters he played on screen. Peter Murphy's voice rises to an eerie wail as he chants the refrain -

"Bela's undead"

It is clever and amusing and played with just the right amount of doom and gloom. But it remains, even all these years later, an excellent single. And despite being over nine minutes long, it does not in any way drag at all.
Rating: 10/10