Artist & Musician Norma Tanega’s Classic Single “You’re Dead” From What We Do in the Shadows

Everyone who is anyone loves the Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement production What We Do in the Shadows. The television show is about a group of vampires who have lived together on Staten Island, New York City for like 100 years. It’s endlessly charming and also hysterical, especially for people fascinated with the vampire subculture influenced by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. What’s also endlessly charming is the theme song “You’re Dead” performed by folk-pop singer-songwriter Norma Tanega. That song is probably stuck in your head right now, and you’re probably wondering about the person behind the song. Here are 12 facts about Norma Tanega.

1. What’s the opening theme song music to What We Do in the Shadows?

The opening theme music to What We Do in the Shadows television series and 2014 film is the 1966 song “You’re Dead,” performed by experimental folk-pop singer-songwriter Norma Tanega.

Click on the shadow to buy What We Do in the Shadows!

2. What is Norma Tanega famous and known for?

Norma Tanega was an experimental folk-pop singer-songwriter whose single “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog” was a big hit in 1966. These days, Norma Tanega may be perhaps more well-known as the performer of “You’re Dead,” the theme song to What We Do in the Shadows film and television series.

 

3. Where is Norma Tanega from?

Norma Tanega was born in Vallejo, California to her Filipino father and Panamanian mother on January 30, 1939. Norma may have inherited her musical chops from her father Thomas, who was a bandmaster aboard the USS Hornet in the United States Navy for like 30 years.

4. Norma Tanega was not actually discovered at summer camp

The prolific producer Herb Bernstein — whose credentials include working with artists like The Monkees, Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield, Bob Dylan, Lesley Gore, and plenty of others — is said to have been visiting the summer camp in the Catskill Mountains where Norma Tanega worked as a counselor and saw her perform. But as Jesse Locke points out in this excellent April 2022 profile of Norma Tanega in Xtra, Herb himself said this didn’t happen. Rather, Herb was a Brooklyn schoolteacher who happened to also be working as a producer with seasoned Four Seasons hitmaker Bob Crewe at the time, the co-writer of such popular tunes like “Walk Like a Man” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” two problematically gender-conforming songs if such two ever existed. Anyway, a student called one day and insisted that Herb watch her friend Norma, and Herb invited invited her to his studio, where Norma “started playing me these songs, and each one was weirder than the next.” Charmed regardless, Herb saw her commercial potential in one of those songs: “Walkin’ a Cat Named Dog.”

5. “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog” was a hit single in 1966

Norma Tanega’s first single “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog” was a huge international hit single in 1966. The song peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was #3 in Canada. The song catapulted Norma into the spotlight that led to her debut album of the same name, a spot on American Bandstand, and a tour with acts like Chad & Jeremy and Gene Pitney.

Click on the cat to buy Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog by Norma Tanega!

6. Was Norma Tanega queer?

She sure was! Born to a Panamanian mother and Filipino father, Norma Tanega was a queer woman of color navigating a 1960s Greenwich Village folks scene that already prided itself on being counter-culture despite being full of white men of middle-class backgrounds. After Norma’s time in the spotlight faded, she spent the last 40-some years of her life in Claremont, California around 1972, where she established herself as a fixture in the LGBTQ+ community. Norma also spent a lot of the ensuing years teaching ESL at the local adult school and art at Cal Poly Pomona. These years were also spent in a romantic partnership with visual artist Diane Divelbess.

7. Norma Tanega & Dusty Springfield were in a relationship

Dusty Springfield and Norma Tanega met on the set of Thank Your Lucky Stars in England, the beginning of a 5- or 6-year relationship where the pair lived together in Kensington, London. Norma painted, played music, and wrote many songs that her partner recorded. The 1971 Norma Tanega record I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile is supposedly filled with references to her relationship with Dusty Springfield, at least according to Springfield biographer Annie J. Randall. “It stands to reason that Dusty would be the object of affection in the love songs,” Randall said, according to Let’s Talk Dusty!. I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile is not an easy record to buy or even listen to, but the good folks at Discogs may be able to help you with a copy. The notes section of Discogs indeed describes this as a “Lost Album” of love songs that Norma Tanega wrote when she was living with Dusty Springfield.

 

8. Norma Tanega wrote a bunch of songs for Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield recorded a bunch of songs that Norma Tanega wrote and sometimes recorded, many of which were released as b-sides to some of Dusty’s singles. Among the songs Norma Tanega has written for Dusty Springfield include “No Stranger Am I,” “Go My Love,” “The Colour of Your Eyes,” and the English lyrics to “Morning,” which is a cover of the Portuguese song “Bom Dia.”

9. How many record albums did Norma Tanega have?

Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog was the debut album by Norma Tanega, released in 1966. I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile was her 1976 follow-up, is tough to track down and is considered something of a lost folk classic. There is also the unreleased Snow Cycles. Most recently, however, the 28-song compilation I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964-1971 was released in 2022 by Anthology Records and can be purchased on Bandcamp.

10. Norma Tenega published an art book!

Published in 2022, Try to Tell a Fish About Water: The Art, Music, and Third Life of Norma Tenega explores the originality of the talented artist and performer through her paintings, photos, journal entries, and other documentations of Norma’s many visual gifts that includes holiday cards and party invitations.

11. Norma Tanega was a very prolific experimental musician

The music output of Norma Tanega did not just consist of “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog” and writing songs for her romantic partner Dusty Springfield. In the 1980s, Norma Tanega was a member of the sound sculptor group Ceramic Ensemble, which played hand-made earthenware as instruments. Norma Tanega also recorded and performed with hybridVigor, Baboonz, and Latin Lizards. According to the Treasury of Claremont Music, Norma Tenaga made 15 albums of original music in her career.

12. When did Norma Tanega pass away?

Norma Tanega passed away from colon cancer at age 80 on December 29, 2019 at her home in Claremont, California. Norma Tanega was an artist who kept creating until the end, and her long, well-lived life can be felt in her songs and paintings, and was fortunate enough to live long enough to see the renewed interest in her career that What We Do in the Shadows generated. There is a tune Norma Tanega recorded for her debut record called “A Street That Rhymes at Six A.M.” that contains a pretty telling lyric of hers: “Syncopate your life and move against the grain.” Those were certainly words that Norma Tanega lived by!

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Looking for more rock-n-roll and other entertainment content? Check out our list of Facts About Buddy Holly and our list of Pre-Beatles Records You Must Own. You also might want to check out Who Was Sister Rosetta Tharpe? and What Songs are Butthole Surfers Known For?

 

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