31 Days of Halloween Hits: "You're Dead" by Norma Tanega

by Julian Spivey
As we welcome October with its cool breezes, and - now socially distanced - festivities, we often think of scary movies, pumpkin patches and killers in masks. Rarely, if ever, do you hear anyone say what they’re looking forward to most about the season, is the music. Granted, Halloween music has nowhere near the mega-market that Christmas music has, but it seems that quality trumps quantity in this particular situation. With songs like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” Halloween season is a heavy hitter when it comes to music! 
 
That’s why we’re celebrating 31 Days of Halloween Hits here at The Word for the entire month of October. Every day we’re going to bring you a great song that fits right in on your Halloween playlist. Some are songs specifically written for the holiday, but others are great selections you can listen to year-around but have a great theme for the spookiest of all holidays. Some of these songs you’ve certainly heard and some are lesser known that we hope to familiarize you with. 

---

Photo: New Voice Records

This summer when there wasn’t much to do and I had run out of my usual TV shows to watch due to production of series being shut down early due to COVID-19 and others not being able to go into production I caught up on a show I’d been meaning to watch for a little while – “What We Do in the Shadows,” an FX network vampire comedy based off the 2014 film of the same name. I binged seasons one and two and thoroughly enjoyed what I’ve found to be one of the most underrated shows on television.
​
The show is hilarious as all hell, but another terrific thing about it is its theme song “You’re Dead.”

I figured the song was potentially written specifically for the show (or the movie, which I hadn’t seen yet when I began the show) but was blown away to find out “You’re Dead” is actually 54 years old!

Yes, it’s 54 years old, but I mistook it for something that may have been written in the last decade – that’s how fresh it sounds.

“You’re Dead” was by a folk singer named Norma Tanega, who didn’t really have all that much success. She never charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and only record two albums (her debut Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog in 1966, which kicks off with “You’re Dead,” and 1971’s I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile.

But listening to “You’re Dead” really entranced me when watching “What We Do in the Shadows” because it’s such a freakin’ perfect tune for a show, specifically a comedy, about vampires with its lyrics: “Don’t sing if you want to love long/They have no use for your song/You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead/You’re dead and outta this world.”

I suspect Tanega wasn’t writing and singing about vampires, but it fits perfectly, nonetheless.

Tanega died in January at age 80, just three months before the season two premiere of “What We Do in the Shadows.” 

---