Could it be magic?  Punk ideologues.  Goth behemoths.  Pop subversives.  In a four-disc box, 3CDs cover thir BBC sessions but it's the one vital DVD that reveals the Banshees' true nature.

Make no mistake:  post-punk started here.  And that's not the half of it.  Between late 1977 and autumn '79, no British band could touch the Banshees.  Punk was increasingly played for cash or laughs, but these one-time Pistols superfans kept it hardcore.  Their infamous, improvised August '76 debut at the 100 Club Punk Rock Festival had taken DIY to its literal extreme.  A year later, the re-emerged with a John Peel session that was light years from numbskull punk.

That debut, still shockingly artful and assured, heads off 55 songs recorded for BBC Radio which make up the first three discs here.  A fourth parcels up 29 performances shot for BBC TV.  From an ice cool arrival on Old Grey Whistle Test, to a saffron-flavoured farewell on Top Of The Pops 13 years later, it chronicles the transformation of punk's most militant iconoclasts into an alternative music colossus that launched a subgenre.

Without the Banshees, there'd probably be no Cure or Joy Division.  Nor, much to the band's chagrin, would those 58 varieties of goth imitators have emerged to corrode their original vision.  Always defiant in the unique majesty of their twisted contribution to rock, the band never could understand those "Just another Banshees album" reviews that piled up as their career progressed.  Were they justified?  Often brilliant, occasionally humdrum.  At The BBC is inconclusive.

The DVD element here, tailored for the mass audience, tends to focus on singles.  With numerous changes, both sonically and sartorially, it's where the band had their fun.  The borderline fizz of 1980's Happy House, the hallucinogenic swell of Fireworks from '82 and remodeling The Beatles' Dear Prudence reveal a keen schooling in British psychedelia.  Occasionally, an acoustic guitar (Spellbound) or clunky piano (Swimming Horses) is brought centrestage to belie their punk origins.  Most dramatic of all, the Banshees took on hip hop techniques for 1988's Peek-A-Boo, and won.  But the aura of crimped hair and studded belt refused to budge.

The audio discs and a Rock Goes To College TV performance from 1981 tell a different story, suggesting that, unlike Bowie, the Banshees' changes were more incremental than monumental.  Like their other great inspiration, Marc Bolan, the band's siren wail - not to mention shrill guitars, tribal rhythms, a tendency towards morbidity and big hair - was so distinctive than no amount of makeovers could ever quite alleviate the burden of their own history.

That signature sound doesn't get more quintessential than 1979's Playground Twist, surely the most extraordinary exercise in barely controlled sonic violence ever heard on Top Of The Pops.  And for the Banshees in all their epic, Poe-like glory, check out the unholy trinity of Hallowe'en, Night Shift and Voodoo Dolly filmed for the College show, which reveals a debt to yet another glam era anti-hero:  Alice Copper.  Black juju, indeed.

Mark Paytress

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In fact, as soon as they began to make noise, to look out/into/through an audience, they had rich, complicated ideas about what their antecedents were and where they were going to take those influences, if only temporarily.  Only some of these influences were musical.  And only some of these musical influences were standard punk influences.  This group didn't come into punk from a garage filled with craggy, blunt riffs and rhythms that had influenced The Who and The Stones as much as The Clash and The Damned.  This group adored the free floating apprehension of Can, the glossy spookiness of The Doors, the wholesome sleaziness of Sparks, the haunted mechanical emptiness of Neu and the perverse grace of The Velvet Underground.  They were obsessive music fans who read Poe and Burroughs and knew all about Fellini and Warhol.  Products of an advanced, industrialised post-imperial society in serious 1970s decline, they found their immediate purpose in art, entertainment and the kind of communal activity that photographs suggest is merely all posing, lusting and fancy dress.  It's a little bit that, but also a little bit some kind of pursuit of freedom, of the future.  The group, as fans, and then amazingly as performers themselves, were interested in remaking the world as a beautiful combination of Liza Minelli's Cabaret, David Bowie's shape shifting bravado, Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, Kraftwerk's aloof electric audacity, Phllip C Dick's excited, contaminated brain, Nico's plangent delirium.  They wanted to make entertainment for boys and girls who dressed a little different and liked de Sade as much as Bolan, Hieronymous Bosch as much as Patti Smith.

The Banshees had chaotically formed around Susan Janet Ballion and Steven Bailey who were pretty much the very first followers of the Sex Pistols, the ones that clapped the Pistols first rum, clumsy noises in student halls while everyone else jeered, moved as far away from the stage as possible, and wondered what the joke was.

Susan and Steven got the Pistols joke, and also appreciated the sources, and sore sensationalism.  They loved the way the group looked and moved, careless and glorious, indifferent and intense, closer to theatre than the dreary denim man rock of the time, close enough to sinning saintly Iggy to make them feel at home, in a homeless sort of way.

They travelled in from empty, isolated and isolating places at the soft, suburban edge of London, seduced by the capsized city, the creatures who came alive in the gay clubs that stayed open all night.  They were part of  a group of friends too quickly tagged the Bromley Contingent.  They dressed up as a shield against the mundane, as a refuse from the everyday which led merely to the everyday, donned sexy, anti-social armour as if they were the result of a chance collision between Artonin Artuad's defiant despair, Marlene Dietrich's abrasive purity and Roxy Music's tart, vain tragi-comedy.  The dressed extremely, sometimes controversially, for fun, to provoke, to make it clear they had unusual things on their mind.  Then they realised that because of the clothes they wore other people, who can be hell at any time of the night or day, were keeping their distance.  This had its advantages for Susan, who had decided whilst growing up in a household constantly on the edge of frightening breakdown that things could be better if you kept yourself to yourself.  If you kept yourself to yourself and then simultaneously drew attention to yourself by wearing fishnet tights, transparent aprons and cut open bras, then the tension this produced made life a little more interesting than it might otherwise be.

Grubby broadcaster Bill Grundy tried to chat up the mischievous, mysterious Susan when she joined the surly Sex Pistols as fan and friend on a sensation seeking tea time tv show.  It was like watching Richard Nixon fancying his chances with Susan Sontag or Eartha Kitt.

Their first guerilla performance, outrageous and useless, where they were conceived and aborted, born and raised, heard and hated, bored and stunned, where they wished to do what they were doing at that moment, was at Malcolm McLaren's 100 Club Punk Festival in September 1976.  Abba's Dancing Queen was number one.  That had taken over 6 weeks of Elton and Kikki's Don't Go Breaking My Heart which had taken over from something despicable by Demis Roussos.  At this point Sid Vicious, then the shy John Ritchie, was a part of what was a kind of collective of freaks, loners and outcasts running away to some kind of circus.

They had decided in the days before the show, where they were somewhere between not existing at all and existing, when they had no songs, that they would ruin some old song, by the Beatles, or the Bay City Rollers.  Their performance, which lasted about 20 trashed minutes, included bits of debris from the various members imagination - Twist and Shout, Smoke on the Water, bits of the Lord's Prayer trapped in Susan's head after years of reciting and rejecting it in school assembly, all of it strangled, skinned and set on fire.

"The intention was to play one number until they threw us off stage, but they never did.  We got bored before then.  It was meant to be our 15 minutes of fame, but it ended up lasting for years and years, which just goes to show how addictive dressing up and making noise for a living can be."

Then came The Clash, who were altogether much more straightforward.

Susan would become Siouxsie Sioux, because she hated cowboys, and because she was going to fight anyone who tried to take away her land, her space, her mind, her body.  She would ride a galloping horse bare back into the complacent faces of those who doubted her talent and vision.  She would shoot arrows straight into the heart of their blank contempt.

She sang like there was no fluffy pink in the world, like it was obviously her job to defile sacred cows.  She sang with a heightened awareness of the society around her, as if she refused to break down and cry whatever the pressure, as if she knew more than anyone alive about the sadistic and masochistic relations between men and women, as if every song she sang was a magic mirror that reflected some aspect of her intimate inner life, as if she was just beginning to explain how disappointed she'd been as a child, as if she wanted to turn her enemies into stone.  It was menacingly seductive.  Steven was first Havoc, because Johnny was Rotten, but then he was Severin, which had a richer, more pungent scent, because of the Velvet Underground's Venus In Furs, the title of which was taken from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novel.  This features the lonely intellectual and masochist Severin.  He played the bass like he'd finally found out what to do with the drama in his life.

1977 started with four weeks of David Soul at number one.

They were the Banshees because of the Vincent Price film Cry of the Banshee, a film they watched a few days before the 100 Club show.  It's very loosely based on some Edgar Allan Poe themes of persecution and revenge.  Price plays Lord Edward Whittman, a sadistic local magistrate in 16th century England looking for witches to torture and burn.  At the end of the film he's carried off to hell in a stage coach.

The pop charts, Radio 1 and Top of the Pops seemed light years away when Siouxsie and the Banshees played their first shows as a quartet in early 1977.  Steven and Sioux were joined by the delicate looking Kenny Morris, who pounded the drums like he was trying to call up the dead and introduce them to the living, and other worldly John McKay, who played guitar like he was cutting up reality and piecing it back together in an unexpected way.  The new group played with such ruthless determination, and the straightest of pale, drawn faces, as if they could freeze time with their paranoid splendour.  They played music that from their very early days achieved Siouxsie and Severin's dream of splicing the Velvet Underground with the shower scene from Psycho.

I saw them play their tenth gig in Manchester in May 1977 just before Rod Stewart reached number one with I Don't Want To Talk About It.  This was punk like Yoko Ono was punk, or Thelonius Monk, or J.G. Ballard.  They played upstairs in a small pub, The Oaks, Siouxsie, possessed by herself, dressed to kill, glorious from top to toe, furiously female, dead alive, had the best hair I'd ever seen, hair that glamorously, dangerously cut through the plain air around her.  It was all part of a mask that promised that this was a definite magic occasion.  She was sensationally two feet in front of me, and so far away, like she was lost inside a world of secret knowledge, her painted eyes sad, desperate and fearless.

Look at me.  Stay away.  Look at me.  Don't touch.

She marched on the spot as if the stage was an iced over sea.  It all seemed in some kind of entertaining, exultant sight of T.Rex, but made up in some other apocalyptic dimension.  He legs kicked high above her head sending chips of icy vividness flashing through the air.  An occasional smile, or sneer, played lightly, darkly, around her dazzling lips.  She issued a series of shocking war cries and chased away demons.

She calmly, frantically sang about the worse calamities imaginable with a face that gave nothing away other than that she was singing these songs that were committed to locating terror and transforming reality.  Her spectacular haughtiness knew no bounds.  McKay's bloody, stripped chords were somewhere between severe and severed.  Severin, ghostly white, used the bass to produce huge black drops of liquid.  Morris serenely, sternly thumped his kit with a kind of aggressive tentativeness.  Somehow it all fitted together with an arrested, jagged logic.  After their performance I wanted to rush out and buy their records.  They appealed to me as a pale male adolescent in emotional turmoil, as a fan of unsettling, repetitive German music, of the more metaphysical, cosmic side of glam, of warped, malevolent avant garde noise, of showing off independence and difference as a kind of mission.  The trouble was, there were no records to buy, and as 1977, the official year of punk, passed, and the group carried on playing shows in splendid, stubborn exile from their peers, no records appeared that captured their intoxicating intensity.  The travelling circus Siouxsie and Severin had joined seemed a little too frightening and far fetched.  In their world no clocks ever told you the right time and the pretty flowers were all covered in blood.  They became a kind of amazing rumour, wonderfully seen but barely heard.

By the end of the year, their first session for John Peel tantalisingly emerged out of the undergrowth like a signal from another planet.  Peel, ultimately scared of nothing, musically at least, had forced the door open on something that had seemed strangely forbidden, as if the group's belligerent artiness was poisonous.  Four songs snapped, crackled and slithered across the nation, songs that expertly articulated numbness, illusion, purity and crisis.  Scalding, scathing but perversely catchy pop music erupted with a precise, eerie Ballardian Englishness.  The terribly charming Siouxsie had the weirdest accent, not quite of this world, not quite of this century.

Within weeks they were back doing another Peel session, still not signed to a record company - Peel made attempts to sign them to the BBC label, at least for a single, staggered that no one wanted them.  Four more songs, cryptic, sarcastic comments about racism, identity, meat and medicine, pop music glistening with Burroughsian horror.

1978 started with an eternity of Mull of Kintyre at number one.

The opposition was still great - because Siouxsie had so obviously resisted the social fiction of femininity as created by means beyond her control, because the group were so uncompromising, or because their subject matter drew its strength from all that was unrighteous, illegitimate and low.  Record companies stayed clear.  The group didn't fancy the worthy independent route.  The struggle for recognition enhanced their stubbornness and toughness never left them.

They eventually signed to Polydor, their first single, Hong Kong Garden, previewed by Peel, was a ravishing top ten hit.

Siouxsie and the Banshees were twisted show business luxury fronted by the hardest, strangest flamboyantly inscrutable female pop star of them all.  No one from the MTV generation, from Madonna to Love, from Bjork to Stefani, has come close to matching the originality of her impact.

Their songs travelled through space, time and sexuality, used handsome, enchanting melody to confront traumatic experiences.  They thumbed their nose at conventional expectations, stuck the knife in, spun in a haze of rhapsody, cracked up, stuck around, found their way, exiled themselves, demanded attention, stopped, started, stopped.  They were principled surrealists screaming themselves hoarse and whispering for dear life under an exhilarating sky.

Great guitarists came and went, rhythm hero Budgie joined on drums, Siouxsie and Steven stayed solid in the churning centre.  Their songs changed as they made their way into the 80s but always had a family resemblance to each other, to their early songs, ideas and experiments.

They ended up gate crashing the pop party playing the most violent, exquisite and erotically charged pop music imaginable.  They sneaked hell into the pop charts, as well as a brittle, opulent heaven and a jarring lewdness.  Considering their topics were mental illness, medical terrors, surreal diseases, sinister intensity, unearthly energy, sexual abuse, childhood disturbances, sordid mysteries, unbearable nervous anxiety, urban discontent and the bleak dignity of solitude, it was astonishing that they ended up as much as anything else a sublime singles band.  

In their own special way, they always wanted to be noticed.

Paul Morely, Home 28/08/06

It wasn't 1978 debut album The Scream that introduced provincial punkdom to Siouxsie & The Banshees, it was their first brace of John Peel sessions.  As yet unsigned, the Banshees took aloof otherworldly ennui to a new level.  Kenny Morris's tribal tom-toms set against John McKay's ice-pick guitar were discomforting enough but allied to Siouxsie's redefinition of atonal Teutonic cool, they made punk's other new stars (Sham 69, UK Subs) sound like the meat-head slop that they were.  Peel's power was never more pronounced; both sessions were taped nine months before The Scream arrived, its barbs blunted for mainstream consumption.  The Banshees never sounded more vital than this; objective good sense might have restrained the mark below, but you'll have to pry these recordings from my cold, dead hands.

8/10  

Ian Fortnam

Courtesy of Pierrelemer

"I think the image gave people the opinion that we were all about the veneer," says Siouxsie.  "Fashion interests me but if there's no content to something that's alluring then it's worthless."  However, there's no doubt that the Siouxsie look helped liberate a generation.  "You were supposed to aspire to the Doris Day-type girls that appeared on the covers of Jackie.  I was the antithesis of that."

In their infancy, the Banshees were the band that remained most true to the punk era's initial spirit of independence and innovation.  Often overlooked, though, is how the group repeatedly slipped - with seemingly effortless subversion - into the pop mainstream (18 Top 40 hit singles remain a testament to that.)  And despite their avowedly suburban origins, from the environs of south-east London, the Banshees' success was international.  After Continental Europe came Japan and, eventually, - America embraced the band's deliciously twisted take on pop.

All this has been achieved without Siouxsie and the Banshees ever losing their cult appeal, which helps to explain the enduring respect the band commands more than 25 years since debuting at London's Punk Rock Festival in 1976.  Much of this inevitably stems from the integrity they showed during the early months of punk rock.  When all around them, fakers and opportunists took the money and ran, the Banshees held out for the record deal that would give them creative control.  Some fans couldn't wait, and a spate of "Sign Up The Banshees - Do It Now!" graffiti began to appear on record company walls.  "People thought we put someone up to do it, but that wasn't true," says the singer.  The decision to wait for the right contract established the tone for the rest of the group's career.

As members of the so-called 'Bromley Contingent', Sioux and co-founder Steven Severin were among the Sex Pistols earliest, most flamboyant fans long before any Punk 'movement.  Yet with guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris (who replaced original drummer Sid Vicious after his on-night stand at the 100 Club gig), these evangelists-turned-performers were virtually the last among the Class of '76 to break.  That's because Siouxsie and the Banshees understood Punk not simply as an opportunity to claim fifteen minutes' of fame, but as a rupture in rock's solidified façade, an epochal moment that would mark a watershed in contemporary music - and the wider culture at large.

In essence, they were right: rock never sounded, nor looked, quite the same again after 1976.  But a quarter of a century on, it's clear that Siouxsie and the Banshees also managed to transcend the old boundaries.  They made their peace with '60s psychedelia, most audibly on their inspired 1983 cover of The Beatles' 'Dear Prudence'.  They elevated the status of the interface.  They anticipated the mass outbreak of hip hop-inspired rock on 1988's 'Peek-A-Boo'.  And while those old accusations of elitism have faded into history, the groups unlikely fusions now seem oddly prescient.

As this new collection confirms, this on-time band of iconoclasts were virtually reborn during the 1980s as pop eclectics unafraid to defy that fast-adhering 'Goth' tag with a string of hit singles as exotic as they were inimitable.  At a time when many of their contemporaries were losing their art to studio boffins and high gloss production, the Banshees embraced the new techniques with dignity and imagination.  That dynamic duo of unadulterated pop majesty, 'Spellbound' and 'Arabian Knights', effortlessly bear this out.  Just three years after 'The Scream', perhaps the most intelligent and distinctive debut album of the punk rock era, the group had exacted a brilliant coup d'état on pop platitudes by augmenting their punkishly untrained instincts with acoustic guitars, exotic moods and bewitching melodies.

All the signs of the Banshees' pop greatness had been there since August 1978 when punk's most zealous purists debuted with 'Hong Kong Garden'.  Hinged on a simple two-chord riff, the song was transformed by a mock-Eastern melody played on a xylophone, and a spacious production that anticipated developments in the years ahead.  Instantly, the band were elevated from the rough-houses of the punk circuit into an elegant, chart-bound act whose deviant tastes and cool ambition put them in the post-punk vanguard - with PiL and the Slits not far behind.

When The Scream patented the 'classic' Banshees sound - tenacious basslines, bittersweet vocals, incisive guitars - the group were quick to mess with their own template.  "We were the only band that could not play our instruments," Siouxsie says.  "That's why our musical landscape was so different to everyone else's.  We didn't grow up learning to play old Rolling Stones records in our bedrooms."

After the acrimonious departure of McKay and Morris during a British tour in autumn 1979, Sioux and Severin recruited a new drummer Budgie and ex-Magazine guitarist John McGeoch.  For the next three years, this line-up developed the Banshees brand with such authority that the group assumed a monolithic almost mythic status.

While punk had become blokeish and laboured, Siouxsie and the Banshees rejoiced in a new exoticism, exemplified by Klimt-inspired album sleeves and the introduction of strings and assorted percussion into their work.  a trio of singles released during 1980 - 'Happy House', 'Christine' and 'Israel' - had confirmed their reputation for innovation, and the flavours quickly intensified, reaching new peaks on the aforementioned 'Spellbound', and 'Arabian Knights'.  The latter in particular fused the group's brooding, rhythmic underbelly with an ostentatious display of sweeping choruses and lyric suggestion.  (And probably the only hit single that dared speak of conquering orifices.)  The band even took on the Beatles and won handsomely with an obscure album track, 'Dear Prudence'.

Flip a Banshees 45, though, and a rather different picture emerged.  The playful Hong Kong Garden had been backed by 'Voices', a slow, punishing 'sound poem' so abrasive that pub landlords used to play it at closing time in a bid to hasten their customers off the premises.  It worked.  Putting more difficult material on the back of singles became a bittersweet Banshees trademark.  "We made sure that the poppiest ones had the most over-the-top B-sides," says Siouxsie.  "There were many sides to the band and we wanted to reveal all of them."  Says Siouxsie.  Included in this collection is one such flip side, the gorgeous, elegiac 'Lullaby'.

By the mid-1980s, when punk's aftershocks had begun to assume distinctly yellowing hue.  Siouxsie and the Banshees forged ahead with the costume changes and the musical mutations.  1985's 'Cities In Dust' marked a new peak of sorts, its production and prowess and sense of urgency winning the group a wider audience in America.  Back home, however, the group encountered some difficulties in shedding their so-called 'Goth' tag.  "I cut all my hair off and even that didn't work," Siouxsie says.  Cue 1988's 'Peek-A-Boo', an arresting exercise in sampledelica that harnessed contemporary techniques to the Banshees sound.  From the same 'Peepshow' LP came 'The Killing Jar', which reaffirmed both Sioux's sorrow at human cruelty and the band's flair for invigorating choruses.

Well into the 1990s, the Banshees continued to forge ahead, exploring more subtle sonic spaces - the intoxicating bellydance thrill of 'Kiss Them For Me', 'Face To Face' (especially commissioned for Tim Burton's 'Batman Returns' movie) with its lounge-like langaur are two of the highlights showcased here.

By  now though, the endless quest for new directions pulled the band apart.  "We were all worn out and we began to take it out on each other."  says Siouxsie,  "We didn't want to continue under those adverse conditions." 

By the middle of the decade, Sioux and Budgie began to pour their energies into their reactivated sideline project, The Creatures and their own Sioux record label.  Steven Severin, too, had his own label, RE: part of his wider online project that releases soundtracks and explores subterranean cultural spaces.  That's not to say the Banshees' story yet has reached its definitive ending.  "I like things being left open," Siouxsie maintains.  "You're left hanging..."

Mark Paytress, 2002

Limited edition available in slipcase.

But first impressions are difficult to shift, and the Banshees' original trademark sound - and image - was so face-punchingly immediate, so thrillingly fearsome, that it became something of a curse.  The penchant for leather, lace and lashings of black make-up, for giving songs titles such as Premature Burial (after and Edgar Allan Poe story) and for cloaking themselves in a vague aura of elitism and misanthropy eventually generated an unwanted 'Goth' tag.  Very soon, the Banshees had unwittingly spawned their own genre, with hundreds of copycat bands reducing their creation to a few moody basslines and some sloppily applied eyeliner.

Imitation, Siouxsie has insisted on countless occasions, is the lowest form of flattery.  But the proliferations of such groups and, more startlingly still, an army of shock-headed, black-clad Siouxsie lookalikes lurking with intent in every town centre, only served to illustrate the breadth of the band's influence.  It was true: between 1979 and the mid-'80s, Siouxsie And The Banshees became a cultural phenomenon.  That they were also a group of punk-inspired imaginatives bent on pop subversion brings us very neatly to Gold.  For it's the Banshees' magnificent ventures into popworld that this collection unashamedly celebrates.  Ventures that, from today's standpoint where formula reigns supreme, confirm Siouxsie And The Banshees as one of the last truly great singles acts.  While culturally closer to the Sex Pistols, the Banshees' approach to singles owed much to their growing up during the golden age of '60s pop, when bands such as The Beatles and The Who rewrote the rules with each successive 45.  Bowie aside - another key inspiration - pop has long since succumbed to a safety first attitude towards hit-making.  And for a band that made its debut as musical illiterates, performing a cacophonous racket based around The Lord's Prayer, those dozen pop hits are no mean achievement.

From the start, Siouxsie And The Banshees understood the value of doing things their way.  While most aspiring punk anti-heroes taught themselves the prerequisite three chord shapes, the Banshees looked way beyond punk orthodoxy for inspiration.  Sure, they knew all about The Velvet Underground and Nico, The Stooges and the pop/rock tightrope-walking of the early Roxy Music.  But they also drew from the apocalyptic writing of JG Ballard and the crisp, whip cracking prose of Sacher-Masoch, the psychological terror of Hitchcock's film and the gaucheries of the B-movie horrorflick, the sensuality of Baudelaire's verse and the haughty, iconic allure of Bette Davis and Louise Brooks.  Much of the strength, intelligence, austerity and wickedness they admired in others inevitably filtered into their own work.

Having survived - and gained confidence from - their 20 September 1976 baptism of fire at London's 100 Club, before a baying, baffled crowd, the Banshees soon shaped up and got serious.  Only singer Siouxsie Sioux and bassist Steven Severin remained from that infamous debut - guitarist Marco Pirroni subsequently found fame with Adam And The Ants, while drummer Sid Vicious joined the Sex Pistols, before becoming punk's first anti-hero corpse.  Adding two acutely hip new recruits, drummer Kenny Morris and guitarist John McKay, the Banshees acquired a real sense of purpose, and by spring 1978, the quartet - famously ice-cool and dedicated - had worked up an extraordinary set of songs,.  Those who'd assumed the band were little more than opportunist, extravagantly dressed Sex Pistols in-crowders were stupefied.  (Sioux and Severin had appeared alongside the Pistols during the band's 'foul-mouthed' appearance on Thames TV's Today show in December 1976, a key punk rock moment.)

Like The Slits and Wire, Siouxsie And The Banshees were taking first generation punk rock into strange and thrilling new spaces.  With the ex Pistols already history, and The Clash hellbent on becoming the new Rolling Stones, the Banshees stuck firmly to punk's original iconoclastic dream.  Eschewing every punk rock cliché, they emerged fully formed sometime around early summer 1978, sounding like no other, their innovative sound overflowing with menace and attack and bile.  If that wasn't shocking enough, Hong Kong Garden, their debut 45 released in August 1978, added another delicious twist to the story.  With it's uplifting glockenspiel motif and oddly memorable "Oh-ho" hookline, Hong Kong Garden was at least two steps out of character.  Most quietly assumed that, like Julie Driscoll's This Wheel's On Fire a decade later, Siouxsie And The Banshees were classic one-hit wonders.  Instead, Hong Kong Garden marked the start of a two-decade dalliance with pop stardom, a remarkable feat given that the band's core audience was always committed album-buying types - who, with much justification, still regard November 1978's The Scream as one of rock's classic debut albums.

BY the time of Happy House, issued in March 1980, the Banshees had undergone an unexpected change, prompted by the sudden departure of Morris and McKay.  Unhappy with the group's direction, the pair had walked out midway during a British tour, prompting much cynical speculation about the band's future.  Happy House provided the perfect riposte.  Featuring  guest drummer Budgie and guitarist John McGeoch, it eschewed the band's dense, characteristic sound - gloriously illustrated on the previous two 45s, The Staircase (Mystery) and Playground Twist - in favour of a more inclusive, richly textured production.

The two musical mercenaries enjoyed it so much they stayed, ushering in an era that witnessed the band's transformation from egg-sucking post-punk fundamentalists into a musical force that was now open to every possibility.  Further confirmation of this came with Christine, a delicate compound of brooding, Banshee riffing and textural elegance, topped with one of Siouxsie's most deliciously anguished performances.

Hitting some kind of peak, the Banshees released a run of successful albums - 1980's Kaleidoscope, Juju (1981), A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (1982) and a live set, Nocturne - confirming both their underground/overground appeal and their desire to shake off the more limiting punk-era associations.  A terrific triptych of singles from this period define what many regard as the classic Banshees sound.  Israel, Spellbound and Arabian Knights, issued in quick succession between November 1980 and July 1981, reveal a band in full possession of its powers.  Feted like rock royalty wherever they went, the Banshees were effortlessly making records that reflected their new status.

The departure of John McGeoch late in 1982 closed another era.  Temporary recruit Cure guitarist Robert Smith steadied the ship long enough to record a shimmering Top 3 cover of The Beatles' Dear Prudence, though this commercial highpoint marked the start of several years' instability.  The internal changes seemed to reflect an encroaching musical uncertainty within the band.

Sandwiched between two of the band's  lesser albums, 1984's Hyaena and Through The Looking Glass, a 1987 cover versions collection, came Tinderbox.  While an affirmation of the band's strengths, this woefully underrated set also included one of their more remarkable singles, Cities In Dust.  The song was featured in a movie, Out Of Bounds, and finally gave the Banshees an unexpected American breakthrough.  Meanwhile, a version of Julie Driscoll's This Wheel's On Fire, from the covers album, kept the folks happy back home.

Though still capable of commanding the front pages of the British rock press, Siouxsie And The Banshees found themselves increasingly in demand abroad, where they were feted for their early subcultural cachet.  Despite this, they continued to move forward musically, and no more startlingly than on 1988's Peepshow.  With the arrival of keyboard playing multi-instrumentalist Martin McCarrick and guitarist Jon Klein, the Banshees once again defied expectations with the lead-off single, Peek-A-Boo, a woozy, hip-hop-inspired cut that drew inspiration from the new genre without ever sounding limp or slavish or opportunistic.  The same album also yielded one of the great 'lost' Banshees singles, The Killing Jar.

The band ran into further personal difficulties after the gruelling Peepshow tour, and it was three years before they emerged with a new studio album.  1991's Superstition was a lush, sorely underrated set, produced by remix king Stephen Hague, that yielded the gorgeous, loop-driven Kiss Them For Me.  In the States, where the Banshee's star had continued to rise - hence the band's 'special guests' status on the 1991 Lollapalooza tour - the single raced into the charts.  It was a different story at home, where Kiss Them For Me remains a cult secret, something this collection will surely redress.

Among the Banshee's many celebrity fans is film director Tim Burton who, handed the blockbuster Batman Returns, commissioned the band to record a song for the soundtrack.  The result was Face To Face, issued in summer 1992, and the last Banshees release for two years.  Once again, the band's continued quest to develop prompted creative differences, a matter not eased by Siouxsie and Budgie's decision to relocate to the south of France.  By 1995's The Rapture, their eleventh and last studio album, the cracks had become impossible to hide.  After one final single, Stargazer, and a difficult jaunt around Eastern Europe, Siouxsie And The Banshees went their separate ways.

A rapturously received reunion tour in 2002 inevitably rekindled interest, as has a continuing series of catalogue releases.  But, like anyone who has chosen to follow their own creative path, Siouxsie And The Banshees have time on their side.  Listening to the recent crop of indie bands, it sounds as if the rest of the world is beginning to catch up.

Mark Paytress, London, 2005

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

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
McGeoch - Guitar

Falling in your
Falling in your
In your arms
In your arms
Fish on a line learns to live on
Dry land
Thrown back again to drown

Kinder with poison
Than pushed down a well
Or a face burnt to hell
Feel the cruel stones
Breaking her bones

Dead before born
Words fall in ruins
But no sound
She's dying of your shame
She's maimed by your pain

He gives birth to swimming horses
He gives birth to swimming horses

Fish on a line
But back in the water to drown
We drown
Floating in sky

He gives birth to swimming horses
He gives birth to swimming horses

Take a ride on the tide
With the assassin at your side
This weightlessness under water
Forgets in slow motion
And washes pointless tortures

He gives birth to swimming horses
He gives birth to swimming horses

Floating in sky like fishes can fly
Through your arms

Sioux - Credits
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
Robert Smith - Guitar & Keyboards

The stars that shine
And the stars that shrink
In the face of stagnation
The water runs
Before your eyes

Swallowing diamonds
Cutting throats
Your teeth when you grin
Reflecting beams on tombstones

A jamboree of surprises
Playing Russian Roulette, or the lucky dip
A clench fist to your heart
Coal dust on your lung

Dazzle, it's a glittering prize
Dazzle, it's a glittering prize

A silver tongue for the golden one
In a dead sea of fluid mercury
Baby piano cries, under your heavy index and thumb
Pull some strings, let them sing

The stars that shine
And the stars that shrink
In the face of stagnation
The water runs
Before your eyes

Dazzle, it's a glittering prize
Dazzle, it's a glittering prize

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
Robert Smith - Guitar & Keyboards
Strings - The Chandos Players

The lunacy will leave the day
Luminous in flight
As the moon spits out
In jagged beams
Another night

Wrap around this brilliant veil
Tranquil and unbroken
As you spiral down
A world of clay
And taut convulsion

The dream swan spins
And cartwheel turns
Down deep within your violet slide
The sun begins to rise

Shaking down its morning swords
To thaw your frozen eyes
The dream swan spins
And so conceals
A heart that aches and yearns

O hush awhile
Sleepless child

I'll be watching over you

Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice & Piano
Severin - Bass & Emulator
Carruthers  - Guitar
Budgie - Drums

I get the feeling, I'm not alone
I get the feeling, it's someone I don't know

Do you ever have the strange sensation
When you're standing mighty tall
To jump from 17 floors and crash into freefall
But then fear takes control
Fear of the unknown

Imagine two complete strangers
Who suspect they were meant to be
Both in need of love and affection
Yet their suspicions prevent something heavenly

Fear takes control
Fear of the unknown

Aware of what will hurt you
You're prepared to remain this way
So sad yet safe with your afflictions
Afraid to start a brand new day
 
We all get the strangest feeling
When we're standing mighty tall
To jump from 17 floors and crash into freefall

But then fear carries all
Fear of the unknown
Fear takes its toll
Fear of the unknown

 Aware of what will hurt you
You're prepared to remain this way
So sad yet safe with your afflictions
Afraid to start a brand new day

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won't you come out and play

Dear Prudence open up your eyes
Dear Prudence see the sunny skies
The wind is low the birds will sing
That you are part of everything
Dear Prudence won't you open up your eyes?

Look around round
Look around round round
Look around

Dear Prudence let me see you smile
Dear Prudence like a little child
The clouds will be a daisy chain
So let me see you smile again
Dear Prudence won't you let me see you smile?

Lennon/McCartney - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
Robert Smith - Guitar & Keyboards

Harmful elements in the air
Symbols Crashing everywhere
Reap the fields of rice and reeds
While the population feeds

Junk floats on polluted water
And old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number 23
Leave your yens on the counter please

Hong Kong garden

Tourists swarm to see your face
Confucius has a puzzling grace
Disorientated you enter in
Unleashing scent of wild jasmine

Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
A race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong garden takeaway

Hong Kong garden

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

Water was running, children were running
You were running out of time
Under the mountain, a golden fountain
Were you praying at the Lare's shrine?

But oh your city lies in dust, my friend

We found you hiding we found you lying
Choking on the dirt and sand
Your former glories and all the stories
Dragged and washed with eager hands

But oh your city lies in dust, my friend

Hot and burning in your nostrils
Pouring down your gaping mouth
Your molten bodies blanket of cinders
Caught in the throes

But oh your city lies in dust, my friend

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
John Carruthers - Guitar & Keyboards

Creeping up the backstairs
Slinking into dark stalls
Shapeless and slumped in bath chairs
Furtive eyes peep out of holes

She has many guises
She'll do what you want her to
Playing dead and sweet submission
Cracks the whip deadpan on cue

Peek-a-boo Peek-a-boo
Peek-a-boo Peek-a-boo

Reeking like a pigsty
Peeling back and gagging free
Flaccid ego in your hand
Chokes on dry tears, can you understand?

She's jeering at the shadows
Sneering behind a smile
Lunge and thrust to pout and pucker
Into the face of the beguiled

Peek-a-boo Peek-a-boo
Golly jeepers
Where'd you get those peepers?
Peepshow, creepshow
Where did you get those eyes?

Strobe lights pump and flicker
Dry lips crack out for more
`Come bite on this rag doll, baby!
That's right, now hit the floor'

They're sneaking out the back door
She gets up from all fours
Rhinestone fools and silver dollars
Curdle into bitter tears

Peek-a-boo Peek-a-boo
Golly jeepers
Where'd you get those peepers?
Peepshow, creepshow
Where did you get those eyes?

This is the happy house
We're happy here
In the happy house
Oh it's such fun

We've come to play
In the happy house
And waste a day
In the happy house
It never rains

We've come to scream
In the happy house
We're in a dream
In the happy house
We're all quite sane
 
This is the happy house
We're happy here

There's room for you
If you say "I do"
But don't say no
Or you'll have to go

We've done no wrong
With our blinkers on
It's safe and calm
If you sing along

This is the happy house
We're happy here
In the happy house
To forget ourselves
And pretend all's well
There is no hell

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Vocals
Budgie - Drums, Harmonica & Vocals
McGeoch - Guitar

It glittered and it gleamed
For the arriving beauty queen
A ring and a car
Now you're the prettiest by far

 No party she'd not attend
No invitation she wouldn't send
Transfixed by the inner sound
Of your promise to be found

Nothing or no one will ever make me let you down

Kiss them for me, I may be delayed
Kiss them for me,  if I am delayed

It's divoone, oh it's serene
In the fountains pink champagne
Someone carving their devotion
In the heart shaped pool of fame

Nothing or no one will ever make me let you down

Kiss them for me,  I may be delayed
Kiss them for me,  I may find myself delayed

On the road to New Orleans
A spray of stars hit the screen
As the 10th impact shimmered
The forbidden candles beamed

Kiss them for me,  I may be delayed
Kiss them for me,  I may find myself delayed
Kiss them for me,  Kiss them for me
Kiss them for me,  I may find myself delayed

Face to face
My lovely foe
Mouth to mouth
Raining heaven's blows
Hand on heart
Tic tac toe
Under the stars
Naked as we flow

Cheek to cheek
The bitter sweet
Commit your crime in your deadly time

It's too divine
I want to bend
I want this bliss but something says I must resist

Another life
Another time
We're Siamese twins writhing intertwined
Face to face
No telling lies
The masks they slide to reveal a new disguise

You never can win
It's the state I'm in
This danger thrills and my conflict kills
They say follow your heart
Follow it through
But how can you
When you're split in two?

And you'll never know
You'll never know

One more kiss
Before we die
Face to face
And dream of flying
Who are you?
Who am I?
Wind in wings
Two angels falling

To die like this
With a last kiss
It's falsehood's flame
It's a crying shame
Face to face
The passions breathe
I hate to stay but then I hate to leave

And you'll never know
You'll never know

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Klein - Guitar
Budgie - Drums & Percussion

Little orphans in the snow
With nowhere to call a home
Start their singing, singing
Waiting through the summertime
To thaw your hearts in wintertime
That's why their singing, singing

Waiting for a sign
To turn blood into wine
The sweet taste in your mouth
Turn bitter in it's glass

Israel, in Israel
Israel, in Israel

Shattered fragments of the past
Meet in veins on the stained glass
Like the lifeline in your palm
Red and green reflects the scene
Of a long forgotten dream
There were princes and there were kings

Now hidden in disguise
Cheap wrappings of lies
Keep your heart alive
With a song from inside

Even though we're all alone
We are never on our own
When we're singing, singing

There's a man who's looking in
And he smiles a toothless grin
Because he's singing, singing
See some people shine with glee
But their song is jealousy
Their hate is clanging, maddening

In Israel, will they sing Happy Noel
Israel, in Israel
Israel, in Israel
In Israel, will they sing Happy Noel

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
McGeoch - Guitar
Budgie - Drums

She tries not to shatter, kaleidoscope style
Personality changes, behind her red smile
Every new problem brings a stranger inside
Hopelessly forcing one more new disguise

Christine
The Strawberry Girl
Christine
Banana Split Lady
Christine
The Strawberry Girl
Christine
Banana Split Lady

Singing sweet savages, lost in her world
This big eyed girl sees their faces unfurl
Now she's in purple, now she's the turtle
Disintegrating

Christine
The Strawberry Girl
Christine
Banana Split Lady
Christine
The Strawberry Girl
Christine
Banana Split Lady

Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums
McGeoch - 6 & 12 String Guitar & Fairfisa

From the cradle bars
Comes a beckoning voice
It sends you spinning
you have no choice

You hear laughter
Cracking through the walls
It sends you spinning
You have no choice

Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spellbound

And don't forget
When your elders forget
To say their prayers
Take them by the legs
And throw them down the stairs

When you think
Your toys have gone berserk
It's an illusion
You cannot shirk

You hear laughter
Cracking through the walls
It sends you spinning
You have no choice

Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spellbound

Been thinking how to escape?
This strait jacket of constraint
Been thinking what can be wrong?
With feelings that long to belong

Stargazing me
In an upside down sea

So weary
This strait jacket dreamer
So resigned
To continue to suffer
But you've learnt
That as you grow weaker
There's less hurt
Because there's much less to hurt

Stargazing me
In a tumbling sea
Up in the galaxy
Staring down on me

Stargazer
Reach out to touch
With your mind
That frees you so much
Stargazer
Kissing your kismet
With bright jewel
Encrusted scars

Stargazing me
In tranquility
Up in the galaxy
Staring down on me

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Klein - Guitar
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
McCarrick - Keyboards

The jewel, the prize
Looking into your eyes
Cool pools drown your mind
What else will you find

I hear a rumour
It was just a rumour
I heard a rumour
What have you done to her

Myriad lights
They said I'd be impressed
Arabian Knights
At your primitive best

A tourist oasis
Reflects in seedy sunshades
A monstrous oil tanker
It's wound bleeding in seas

I heard a rumour
What have you done to her
I heard a rumour
What have you done to her

Veiled behind screens
Kept as your baby machine
Whilst you conquer more orifices
Of boys, goats and things

Ripped out sheep's eyes
No forks or knives

Myriad lights
They said I'd be impressed
Arabian Knights
At your primitive best

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
McGeoch - Guitar

Down where this ugly man
Seeks his sustenance
Down in the blue, midnight flare
A glass hand cuts through the water
Scything into his twisted roots
Then from his eyes spring fireflies
Breathing life into a roaring disguise

Needles and sins, sins and needles
He's gasping for air
In the wishing well
Dust to rust, ashes to gashes
Hand around the killing jar

A soft hoodwink of shadow
The size of make-believe
Punches through his spike of rage
A glass hand cuts through the water
Snuffing out the magic fury
Then from inside bolt lightning cries
Swiftly crushed the final, muffled sighs

Needles and sins, sins and needles
He's gasping for air
In the wishing well
Dust to rust, ashes to gashes
Hand around the killing jar

John Fowles The Collector

If your memory serves you well
We were going to meet again and wait
So I'm going to unpack all my things
And sit before it gets too late
No man alive will come to you
With another tale to tell
But you know that we shall meet again
If your memory serves you well
This wheel's on fire,
Rolling down the road,
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode

If your memory serves you well,
I was going' to confiscate your lace
And wrap it up in a sailor's knot
And hide it in your case
If I knew for sure that it was yours
But it was oh so hard to tell
But you knew that we would meet again
If your memory serves you well
This wheel's on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode

If your memory serves you well
You'll remember you're the one
That called on me to call on them
To get you your favors done
And after every plan had failed
And there was nothing more to tell
You knew that we would meet again
If your memory served you well
This wheel's on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode

Let me take you down
To testify
Under the brow of a sparkling sky
We'll dance away
A distant day
And shout our sins
In a passion play

Over we go
Diving for pearls
Over we go
From the edge of the World

Let the fire fall in
The footsteps we leave
Painted on the ground
We'll watch the stars
Come crashing down
Upon our heads
Like a madding crown

Over we go
Diving for pearls
Over we go
From the edge of the World

Let me take you down
To testify
Under the brow of a sparkling sky
We'll dance away
'Til the day is done
Then rise again
To unwrap the Sun

Over we go
Diving for pearls
Over we go
From the edge of the World
This is the song from the edge of the World

The stars that shine
And the stars that shrink
In the face of stagnation
The water runs
Before your eyes

Swallowing diamonds
Cutting throats
Your teeth when you grin
Reflecting beams on tombstones

A jamboree of surprises
Playing Russian Roulette, or the lucky dip
A clench fist to your heart
Coal dust on your lung

Dazzle, it's a glittering prize
Dazzle, it's a glittering prize

A silver tongue for the golden one
In a dead sea of fluid mercury
Baby piano cries, under your heavy index and thumb
Pull some strings, let them sing

The stars that shine
And the stars that shrink
In the face of stagnation
The water runs
Before your eyes

Dazzle, it's a glittering prize
Dazzle, it's a glittering prize

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
Robert Smith - Guitar & Keyboards
Strings - The Chandos Players

The band had not long returned from a trip to Israel, the line 'The Sea Of Fluid Mercury' refers to The Dead Sea.  Source:  Melody Maker 17/10/92.

The body is wrapped in shadow
The face is built of cinders
And panic tears thro' your silhouette
As you're squeezed by burning fingers
And he's crackling in colours
With teeth of gelignite

When he sighs his song of pirouettes
Thro' a dance of dynamite

We are fireworks, slowly, glowing
Bold and bright
We are fireworks, burning shapes
Into the night

His fuel is our frustration
And dreams begin to ache
And all the while we wear a party smile
And happily we shiver
Happily we shake
Oh shake, shake, shake

We are fireworks, slowly, glowing
Bold and bright
We are fireworks, burning shapes
Into the night

Twist and turn, burn, burn, burn
Twist and turn, burn baby burn

Lyrics:  Severin

Falling in your
Falling in your
In your arms
In your arms
Fish on a line learns to live on
Dry land
Thrown back again to drown

Kinder with poison
Than pushed down a well
Or a face burnt to hell
Feel the cruel stones
Breaking her bones

Dead before born
Words fall in ruins
But no sound
She's dying of your shame
She's maimed by your pain

He gives birth to swimming horses
He gives birth to swimming horses

Fish on a line
But back in the water to drown
We drown
Floating in sky

He gives birth to swimming horses
He gives birth to swimming horses

Take a ride on the tide
With the assassin at your side
This weightlessness under water
Forgets in slow motion
And washes pointless tortures

He gives birth to swimming horses
He gives birth to swimming horses

Floating in sky like fishes can fly
Through your arms

Lyrics: Sioux

Too many fools blocking my motion
Clouding my eyes, must be the potion
Spots in my eyes, must be the lotion
Spots in my eyes, must be the lotion

Love in a void
It's so numb
Avoiding love
Its so dumb
Love in a void

Too many bigots for my liking
Too many critics, too few writing
Rabid dogs that aren't biting
Rabid dogs that aren't biting

Love in a void
It's so numb
Avoiding love
Its so dumb
Love in a void

Jaded reputation on which you're staking
Lots of money for the making
For all the stars they're just faking
For all the stars they're just faking

Love in a void
It's so numb
Avoiding love
Its so dumb
Love in a void

Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

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

Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

Reunion begins with a glass of mercury
Whilst television flickers
With another News Bulletin
Flints light up the eyes
Of the seated family

Metal is tough, Metal will sheen
Metal won't rust when oiled and cleaned
Metal is tough, Metal will sheen
Metal will rule in my master scheme

With a clockwork jerk
Pluck cogs from fob watches
For dinner on Friday
Then recoiling say 'excuse me
Must go recycle
My precious machinery

Metal is tough, Metal will sheen
Metal won't rust when oiled and cleaned
Metal is tough, Metal will sheen
Metal will rule in my master scheme

It's ruling our lives
There is no hope
Thought I'd drop a line
The weather here is fine
But day and night
It blares
Commanding through loud speakers

Metal is tough, Metal will sheen
Metal won't rust when oiled and cleaned
Metal is tough, Metal will sheen
Metal will rule in my master scheme

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

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

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar & Saxophone

Got to give up life in this netherworld
Gonna go up to where the air is stale
And live a life of pleasantries
Mingle in the modern families

Overground from abnormality
Overboard for identity
Overground for normality
Overboard on identity

This limbo is no place
To be a digit in another space
In another crowd
I'm nameless bound

Overground from abnormality
Overboard for identity
Overground for normality
Overboard on identity

Overground I'll be worse than me
Overground it's clear to me
I'll be worse than me

Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.

Do you, don't you want me to love you
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you
Tell me tell me tell me come on tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer

So look out!
Helter skelter
Na la la la la la
Helter skelter
Na la la la la la
Helter skelter 

Will you, won't you want me to make you
I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you
Tell me tell me tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop

Lennon/McCartney - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

You dip your hands into my flesh
And say you won't reveal a scar
I must have faith in this procedure
It's a miracle, It's a wonder

A thousand hidden needles
In a thousand covered nerves
Stick pins in my receptacles
Look to your Voodoo doll, your mojo

Staying alive at five
For you to cure my ailments
Another soul is saved
With your bogus medications

Which colour shall we have today?
Depends on how I feel you say
Consult your research on the media
See blue will calm my hysteria

Staying alive at five
For you to cure my ailments
Another soul is saved
With your bogus medications

Staying alive at five
With your empty containers
Another corpse ornaments your waiting room
A placebo effect reversed

Will you ever regret, the placebo effect
Can you ever forget, the placebo effect

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

Hanging, hanging, hanging
Hanging from your daisy chains
Swinging in the trees
Running from your enemies
And falling on your knees
On your knees, on your knees
Get down on your knees

Throw the dice
You three blind mice
Did you ever see
Such a thing in your life
You swallow the trail
But still arrive
Inside your entrails

Hanging, hanging, hanging
Hanging out at party games
Dancing in the shadows
Up and down on the sea-saw
Balancing the scales
You're drunk, you're drunk
Get your balancing the scales

Someone to blame
Someone to shame
Someone that you can claim
Go back to pass the parcel
And follow the leader

Hanging, hanging, hanging
Hanging from your climbing frames
Swinging in the gallows
Laughing with your buddies
But you can drown when you're shallow
You can drown when you're shallow
You can drown, drown, drown
Drown, drown, drown, drown, drown

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar & Saxophone

Coronets rest on a death's head mask
No-one is safe while the curfew lasts
But crusted orbs glitter, scepters gleam
While helmets of blood fill the screen

They look away
And then they say
"For the good of the land"
For the love of the man"

Standing alone
Sitting alone
On the throne
Of the regal zone
 
Old limbs hang in the torture room
While old kings hang in the portrait room
Their noble eyes gaze on the uneasy dance
Of the squirming body on the marble plate

They look away
and then they say
"For the good of the land"
for the love of the man"

Standing alone
Sitting alone
On the throne
Of the regal zone

Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar & Saxophone

In Flanders fields
The poppies grow
Between the crosses
Row on row
That mark our place
We are the dead

Words adapted from John McCrae's 'In Flanders Fields'
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Morris - Drums & Percussion
McKay - Guitar

The night is still
And the frost it bites my face
I wear my silence like a mask
And murmur like a ghost

"Trick or Treat"
"Trick or Treat"
The bitter and the sweet

"Trick or Treat"
"Trick or Treat"
The bitter and the sweet
 
The carefree days
Are distant now
I wear my memories like a shroud
I try to speak but words collapse
Echoing, echoing

"Trick or Treat"
"Trick or Treat"
The bitter and the sweet

"Trick or Treat"
"Trick or Treat"
The bitter and the sweet

I wander though your sadness
Gazing at you with scorpion eyes
Halloween Halloween
 
A sweet reminder
In the ice-blue nursery
Of a childish murder
Of hidden lustre
And she cries

"Trick or Treat"
"Trick or Treat"
The bitter and the sweet

"Trick or Treat"
"Trick or Treat"
The bitter and the sweet
 
I wander through your sadness
Gazing at you with scorpion eyes
Halloween Halloween

Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
McGeoch - Guitar

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

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
McGeoch - Guitar

She hates the man and he hates the man
Because something strong inside has been denied them
But not him, oh not him

He hates the girl and she hates the girl
Because something weak implied
They fought to push aside them
But not her, oh not her

The girls isn't alive but the man is dead
Because it's all been said before
The girl isn't alive but the man is dead
Because you only have you mentor to draw, you whore

Dead lumps of meat melt in this heat
Dead lumps of meat melt in this heat

She hates the man and he hates the man
Because something strong inside has been denied them
But not him, oh not him

He hates the girl and she hates the girl
Because something weak implied
They fought to push aside them
But not her, oh not her

The girls isn't alive but the man is dead
Because it's all been said before
The girl isn't alive but the man is dead
Because you only have you mentor to draw from

Dead lumps of meat melt in this heat
Dead lumps of meat melt in this heat

But not them

Into the line
I see it fine
Into the line
Our hearts entwine
Remember when
Your time again

Standing in the light
Always sitting on the line
Never on a side
Always wanting to be right
Pushing out the light
Standing in the light
I never wanted to be right
Now I'm attracted by the light
And blinded my the sight

Into the light
I see it fight
Into the light
A new horizon
Bleached into white
Kept out of sight

Dead ahead in the night
Burning in the light
And knowing that it's right
Driving in the night
Dead ahead in the light
Into the light

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
McGeoch - Guitar

Sickly sweet, his poison seeks
For the young ones who don't understand
The danger in his hands
With a jaundiced wink see his cunning slink
Oh trust in me my pretty one
Come walk with me my helpless one

Candyman

Syrup lies upon your tongue
Gelatine saliva spills
The flash of a guillotine a smile

Candyman - oh candyman

No pity for him, their misery screams
Unspeakable things

A cool missile, yes it's in his smile
With open arms to welcome you
Beware the masked pretender

He always lies, this candyman
Those lips conspire in treachery
To strike in cloak and dagger, see!

Candyman - oh candyman

And all the children, he warns ``don't tell,''
Those threats are sold
With their guilt and shame they think they're to blame
For candyman oh candyman

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
John Carruthers - Guitar & Keyboards

Troubled weather's on its way
Tempests threaten us today
There's no respite, from long dark nights
Just the fantasy of spring

From the hailstones of summer
To a scorching winter land
A frozen death sleep, then this heat
Beats down on this bucked land

Flames lick closer to the core
From city limits fireball
And in a headless chicken run
Race red and screaming fire engines
Then the cannons came

'Neath the brooding sky
Beneath its baleful eye
The cannon shot, the cannon crack
Disturbing night dreams

People fled in droves
To the lakes and to the shores
Left behind a near ghost town
Save the life of the cannons resounding

Still there was no rain
Once more in the line of fire
Hovers the preying sky
The cannons aim jabs at the eye
Heralding the rain

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
John Carruthers - Guitar & Keyboards

Come take this hand at twilight's door
I'll meet you there we'll share the moonlit floor
Through the driving rain, colours run in veins
Ozone fills the air, two figures disappear

Come let's take flight, let's quit this scene tonight
Whilst they sleep on endless, in their wrecked designs
Sleep on endless in your wrecked designs

Moths touched by flame repeat their fatal game
Forever and eternally, the cliffs around the crashing sea
Unsolved and endless, wait for me

Undulating far below, where lucid waters flow
Their faces seem to know

Where the land falls to an end
This hidden tale begins
Take a walk with me, down by the sea
Take a walk with me
Down by the sea

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass & Keyboards
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
John Carruthers - Guitar & Keyboards