Songfacts®:

• Pebe Sebert is Kesha's mom, and often her co-writer. Before she had Kesha, Pebe set her sights on becoming a pop star, but it didn't work out. She was a Nashville songwriter with a #1 Country hit to her credit: "Old Flames (Can't Hold a Candle to You)" by Dolly Parton. In 1984 she put together demos for a recording session that never happened when she fell victim to drug and mental health issues. "Vampire" is a song Sebert wrote for the album with David Vidal; they composed it in Burbank, California, where Sebert was living. They recorded the demo at Criterion Studios in Hollywood with a young studio boffin named Guy Roche producing.
  
  "Vampire" didn't see the light until decades later when Sebert found the reel-to-reel demo recording in her archives. She reconnected with Roche, who had become a hit-making producer for Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Cher, and many other artists. Roche was able to digitize the tape and clean it up, and on October 22, 2021 (just in time for Halloween), Seibert released it as her first single, 37 years after it was recorded.
• The song is about an amorous encounter with a vampire. Pebe Sebert has always been in touch with the supernatural, so it's right in her wheelhouse. "I'm into ghosts, spaceships, past lives, astrology," she said in a Songfacts interview. "All the less-than-real things are what I get the most enjoyment out of. I'm not a person who's going to get enjoyment out of a football game.
  
  So, I've always been fascinated with all of that stuff, and we were talking about vampires, and the whole idea of not being scared of a vampire and looking forward to that.
  
  Part of it, for me, is that I've always felt out-of-the-loop, like, a little too odd to fit in, so it was almost from the perspective of not finding anyone here I could connect with, so I'm going to connect with this dead vampire. That's going to be my special guy."
• Kesha recorded this song, but her version was never released. It's original title was "Didn't I Hold You."