Halloween Mix Part 15 - Peter Tosh Encounters Dracula!

As Hollywood has done numerous times with Dracula… we’ll just think of today’s offering as a sequel! But this version of "Dracula" may go a little deeper than the simple title suggests. Peter Tosh was an outspoken critic of Jamaican politicians and policies and he suffered attacks at the hand of police and other assailants on numerous occasions after speaking his mind. And though these physical attacks resulted in stitches and broken bones they were mild compared to the war Tosh was waging against inconceivable supernatural evils that others couldn’t fathom.

I’m quoting from Roger Steffens 1986 interview/article "Rebel With A Cause" which is available in its entirety here. The second quote is an extremely concise article about Tosh that appears here at The Talking Drum.

"In the middle of the night, before daylight, I was attacked by evil forces, seen? Spiritual evil forces that cause my mouth to cease from function, cause my hands and legs to cease from moving. Is only my mind that was in function, and my two eyes. As close as four of my friends was to me, which was about 12 inches away, I could not tell a man nothing, or ask a man to do anything to help me; and I was on the brink of what you call "death." Seen?...it started with these three man here. Seen? Coming from the hospital I saw ghosts, three ghosts."

(Peter was taken to the hospital after an incident with a drunken man who attacked him with a bar stool left his hand severely lacerated. That night something very strange occurred.)

"…Is what they call duppies. Ghosts. 'Cause I can see them. Seen? I saw three of them. And I was the only person out of about 400 that saw them. And they become terrified because they don't like to know that people are, you know, interfering in their business. Seen?"

"The vampires which had been haunting Peter throughout his life finally caught up with him (when he was killed in his home on September 11th, 1987 by three intruders who supposedly were looking to rob him). In one interview he gave the year that he died he had this to say: "Vampires don't come out and bite your neck anymore. They cause...something destructive to happen that blood will spill and those invisible vampires will get their meals."

Pretty eerie stuff, but back to the music… Originally released in 1977 on Tosh’s own Intel-Diplo label, Dracula was the B-side version to the track appropriately called "Vampire." This song really hit me in 1992 when I first saw Nicholas Campbell's excellent Peter Tosh documentary Stepping Razor: Red X. I’d heard the song before but when it was put in context with the shadowy images and ghostly whisper of Tosh’s own voice, taken from autobiographical mini-cassettes Tosh was recording around the time he was murdered, it gave me the creeps! To this day when I hear that wolf howl and that little drum roll just before the wicked bass line kicks in I get shivers up my spine. Not to mention that bloodcurdling moan/laugh provided by Bunny Wailer which if listened to at high volume will not only rattle the pictures off the walls but definitely put your nerves on edge.

Part 15 Download

Again... Comments are always welcome and appreciated.