Music and British Identity: Siouxsie & The Banshees


Primary members: Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Severin, Budgie, John McGeoch, Robert Smith
Band Biography
Albums of focus: The Scream (1978), Juju (1981), Nocturne (1983), Hyaena (1984), Tinderbox (1986)
Songs for study: "Love in a Void," "Mirage," "Suburban Relapse," "Voodoo Dolly," "Night Shift," "Pure," "Jigsaw Feeling," "Melt!" and "Blow Your House Down"

"It was a case of us knowing what we didn't want, throwing out every cliché. Never having a guitar solo, never ending a song with a loud drum smash. At one point, Siouxsie just took away the high-hat from the drum kit. Siouxsie wanted a guitar sound like a cross between The Velvet Underground and the shower scene in Psycho." --Steve Severin, bassist

 

"Mirage" - from The Scream (1978)

I'm just a vision on your TV screen
Just something conjured from a dream
Seen thro' your x-ray eyes
A see thro' scene
The image is no images
It's not what it seems

My limbs are like palm trees
Swaying in the breeze
My body's an oasis
To drink from as you please

I'm not seeing what I'm meant to believe in
Your non-excuse for human being

It's not plain to see
That I'm playing with me
A photo fit of loose ends framed in 3-D
Seen thro' your x-ray eyes
A see thro' scene
The images no image is
It's not what it seems

 

"Suburban Relapse" - from The Scream (1978)
I'm sorry that I hit you
But my spring snapped
I'm sorry I disturbed your cat nap
But whilst finishing a chore
I asked myself 'what for?'
Then something snapped.
I had a relapse
A suburban relapse

I was washing up the dishes
And minding my own business
When my string snapped
I had a relapse
A suburban relapse

Should I?
Throw things at the neighbours
Expose myself to strangers
Kill myself or you?
Now memory gets hazy
I think I must be crazy
but my string snapped
I had a relapse
A suburban relapse

"Voodoo Dolly" - from Juju (1981)

SIOUXSIE: "I suppose everyone has their own personal voodoo dolly which is capable of destroying them. A bad habit, or something they like but shouldn't. A vice, most vices; one that's hard to control, hard to kick. The same for men with certain girlfriends, they're like voodoo dollies, always winding them up and they destroy them." --Source: Sounds 20 June 1981

She's your little voodoo dolly
And she's gonna make you lazy
Like the little drum in your ear
Transfixes you to your fear

And now she's transfixed in your fear
And you know she's gonna stay there
Because her nails are deep in your hair
And she made you so unaware

Are you listening to your fear
The beat is coming nearer
Like the little drum in your ear
Transfixes you to your fear

She's such an ugly little dolly
And she's making you look very silly
And when you listen in to her ear
You get paralysed with her fear
Oh down down in your fear

Now this little voodoo dolly
Has made you very lazy
And you're anaemic from her sucking
And when your dead she'll find another

Better break that little dolly
And sling her in the corner
Now she's a sorry little dolly
Such a sorry little dolly

Are you listening to your fear
The beat is coming nearer
Like that little drum in your ear
Transfixing you to your fear listen

 

"Night Shift" - from Juju (1981)

SIOUXSIE: " 'Night Shift' was about the Yorkshire Ripper, not Bela Lugosi, or whatever. Goth was pantomime."
-- Source: Time out 26 September 1998

"This news journalist told me that they had a lot of information about the Ripper before he was caught. I don't know how true...that he was a necrophiliac, at least while he was a gravedigger, and that was why he wanted to work the night shift." --Source: Juju liner notes

Only at night time I see you
In darkness I feel you
A bride by my side
I'm inside many brides
Sometimes I wonder

What goes on in your mind
Always silent and kind
unlike the others

Fuck the mothers kill the others
Fuck the others kill the mothers
I'll put it out of my mind because
I'm out of my mind with you
In heaven and hell with you

My night shift sisters
Await your nightly visitor
They don't bother me no
No they don't bother me

The cold marble slab
Submits at my feet
With a neat dissection
Looking so sweet to me, please come to me

With your cold flesh, my cold love
Hissing, not kissing
A happy go lucky chap
Always dressed in black
He'll come to you, he'll come to you

My night shift sisters
With your nightly visitor
A new vocation in life
My love with a knife

Fuck the mothers kill the others
Fuck the others kill the mothers
I'll put it out of my mind because
I'm out of my mind with you
in heaven and hell with you

 

You are the melting man
You are your situation
There is no time to breathe
And yet one single breath
Leads to an insatiable desire
Of suicide in sex

So many blazing orchids
Burning in your throat
Making you choke
Making you sigh
Sigh in tiny deaths

"So, melt!
my lover, melt!"
She said, "Melt!
my lover, melt!"

You are the melting man
And as you melt
You are beheaded
Handcuffed in lace, blood & sperm

Swimming in poison
Gasping in the fragrance
Sweat carves a screenplay
Of discipline and devotion

"So, melt!
my lover, melt!"
She said, "Melt!
my lover, melt!"

Can you see?
See into the black of a long, black car
Pulling away from a funeral of flowers
With my hand between your legs
Melting
"So, melt!
my lover, melt!"
She said, "Melt!
my lover, melt!"

 

"Blow Your House Down" - from Hyaena (1984)

"The songs on Hyaena, gliding, giddy, frantic, blissful, crumbling, determined, responding to all manner of harrowing cruelty and abuse and frustrations, gripping onto transcendent purpose in the face of the rise of violent sensationalism, is music that should be used more often when images and news events of the polarised 1980s are shown. Usually we hear Wham, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Duran Duran, but rarely the music that actually evokes the torn, turbulent atmosphere of the times.  Images of head turning 1980s conflict inspired by the destructive and mean-spirited Margaret Thatcher combined with the fierce, degenerate and appalled music on Hyaena would be a better way of explaining how reality was to an extent being mutilated by insidious unseen powers. A few minutes of various Margaret Thatcher edits from her most imperial phases in the 1980s cut to 'Blow Your House Down' would explain much about what happened to the decade." --Journalist Paul Morley

Weaving in his basket chair
Twist you round a lock of hair
Made of straw, the wicker man
Made of straw, I'll blow your house down

Bishops falling from the windows*
The lightening makes your hair stand on end

This dervish frenzy, will make you run around
This dervish frenzy, will turn your head around
Blow the house down

Stretching a rubber band miracles trip over
Feel where we stand
Shift the ground, caterpillar man
Crumbling castles in the sand
Blow the house down

*The line ‘Bishops Falling From The Windows’ takes its inspiration from the Luis Bunuel film L'Age d'Or.

Feebly we put our heads out of our foxy lair
We feel the chill from the night soar
Standing in the storm, waiting for the flash to crash
Counting seconds before we turn to ash

It's getting nearer
Blow the house down
This dervish frenzy, will turn your head around

Standing on the stairs that want to fall down
It's getting nearer don't turn your head around
Made of straw
A lighted match
Burn the house down
Turn your head around
Pillars of salt watch as it all burns down
Down to the ground
Blow the house down