TRACK #444:

Count on Dracula by Birth Control

Our 2nd Drac-Track on the block comes from another European outfit, this time German Prog-Rock ensemble Birth Control.

Despite being the eponymous track from their 1980 album Count On Dracula, Birth Control had been crankin’ it out since 1966. Though lacking any original members by the 80’s, and disbanding briefly shortly after this release, the band had a pretty extended career that lasted into the 2020s even.

Their contribution to the Dracula canon is a pretty lean and straight forward tale. Our narrator recounts a story of meeting a beautiful vampish woman, who looks young but sounds old. She implores him to take her to the cemetery, cause I guess she needs an escort? That part seems a little unclear. Why couldn’t she just go to the cemetery on her own? I guess you’re maybe suppose to imagine she’s a creature of the night, and he’s the intended victim?

Either way, they go to the boneyard and our man asks her what’s the deal. She tells him she’s meeting the Count, whom we presume is Dracula. She says he’s gonna take her away, which eventually he does, I guess. As they leave, she says “now he’s mine” which I suppose is some kind of twist. A double twist, even, if you were imagining she was gonna vamp out on the narrator, who’s just left holding his dick in a cemetery after all this unnatural bullshit.

Like seriously, why is he even there? He seems to serve absolutely no purpose aside from being a witness to this nonsense. We don’t know this story if he isn’t there to be able to tell us the tale. I’ll be honest though, I dunno how valuable this tale really is, as a cautionary one or just pure entertainment.

But thankfully, the music propping this story up is solid. Cause man is this riff doomy as hell for a not-at-all doomy band out of Germany in the early 80’s. It’s a fuckin groove and a welcome addition to the playlist we hope you’ll all enjoy.

So let’s all Count On Dracula with Birth Control.