THE SCREAM ERA SINGLES

Includes scans of 7", 10", 12" singles, cassettes, CDs, promos, imports, limited editions and adverts.  Also includes track listings, catalogue numbers, release dates, chart positions, credits, liner notes and reviews.


 

HONG KONG GARDEN

 

SINGLE

 
 
  UK 7" Single Track Listing  
 
 
  Hong Kong Garden 7" Single - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  2059 052
Click on cover for full scan

 

Hong Kong Garden
Voices
 
  Released: 18/08/78  
  UK Chart: No. 7  
  US Chart: Didn't Chart  
  Sleeve Design: Banshees/Polydor Art Dept.  
  Producer: A Side: Stevenson/Steve Lillywhite  
  Producer: B Sides: Bruce Albertine  
       

 

IMPORTS/PROMOS

 
 
  UK 7" Single Gatefold Sleeve Track Listing  
 
 
  Hong Kong Garden 7" Single Gatefold Sleeve Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  2059 052 
Click on cover for full scan

 

Hong Kong Garden
Voices
 
  Notes: Available in limited edition gatefold sleeve

 

 
  Japanese 7" Import Single Track Listing  
 
 
  Hong Kong Garden 7" Single Japanese Import Front Cover  - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  DPQ 6115B 
Click on cover for full scan

 

Hong Kong Garden
Voices
 
  US  7" Promo Single Track Listing  
 
 
  Hong Kong Garden 7" Single US Promo Front Cover 
Cat:  PD 14561
Hong Kong Garden
Overground
 
       

 

PRESS

 
 
  NME 19/08/78  
 
 
  Hong Kong Garden Advert - Click Here For Bigger ScanA lot of people have been waiting a long time for this disc, waiting while the self styled enfant terrible of the punk front line played cat and mouse with a music industry she openly regards with contempt and disdain.  Siouxsie's got a point.  The record companies that ultimately decide what you're going to be able to buy are often reactionary and staid and deaf and can be accused of attempted manipulation of the populace.  But then she isn't entirely blameless on that last count either.  If you really think the Banshees spent the last year in a contract less limbo because they were too uncompromising, their music too near the edge, then you must spend a lot of your time going round walking into walls.  The Banshees have fans, lots of them, and no record company unless it lacks fundamental business sense would pass up the chance to sell records to those fans.  And what about putting out a record themselves?  Don't they know the old mass access argument hardly applies anymore.  But there you go and here we are and here it is, a brash, delirious two chord triumph that I would never have thought them capable of, being not in the least enamoured of their facile attempts at creating radical new music.  It's one thing to employ oblique, disorientating constructions, it's another thing entirely to make them work, as the shapeless flip, "Voices" amply illustrates.  "Hong Kong Garden", a long stage favourite, stays simple and stays clear of the trap.  It's a bright, vivid narrative, something like snapshots from the window of a speeding Japanese train, power charged by the most original, intoxicating guitar playing I heard in a long, long time.  Would you believe it's going to be played on Radio One?  Would you believe Siouxsie on Top Of The Pops? Would you believe not one mention of Blon.....oops.

Paul Rambali

 
 


More press...

 
     

 

VIDEO

 
 
 

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  Description:  
  The band:  Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, John McKay, Kenny Morris.  Shot on 16/08/78.  Straight band performance treated in high contrast with little colour.  Siouxsie skips and hops her way through the performance and at once stage drops her microphone.  In keeping with the song the video ends with a close up shot of a large gong.  
     
  Director:  
  Clive Richardson  
     
  Availability:  
  The Best Of (Sound & Vision) DVD
Once Upon A Time Video
 
     

 

CREDITS

     
  Hong Kong Garden Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Hong Kong Garden Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: "I’ll never forget, there was a Chinese restaurant in Chislehurst called 'The Hong Kong Garden'. Me and my friend were really upset that we used to go there and like, occasionally when the skinheads would turn up it would really turn really ugly. These gits were just go in on mass and just terrorise these Chinese people who were working there. We’d try and say ‘Leave them alone’, you know. It was a kind of tribute." Source:  Punk Top Ten Interview 08/06/01.
SIOUXSIE: "I remember wishing that I could be like Emma Peel from The Avengers and kick all the skinheads' heads in, because they used to mercilessly torment these people for being foreigners. It made me feel so helpless, hopeless and ill." Source:  Uncut  01/05.
SEVERIN: "That was freaky. A very strange period. We'd finished it a month before it came out, and we'd pushed it away - and it was just a very strange feeling having people rush up and say how great it was." Source:  NME 23/12/78.
 
     

 


     
  Voices Lyrics  
 
 
 

And I'm hearing the whispers from my window
And I'm hearing something scratching on the inside
Could it be the sea beckoning me?
Could it be - can I see?

Voices on the air

And I'm feeling like a moody situation
And I feel the waves lapping with contempt
Could I feel my senses leaving me
Could it be - can I see?

Voices on the air

Lyrics:  Severin

Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
McKay - Guitar
Morris - Drums

 
     
  Voices Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  The Haunted Palace by Edgar Alan Poe & On Wine & Hashish by Baudelaire.  
     

 


     
  Overground Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Overground Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SEVERIN: "It was written at a time when we were all getting desperate for a contract... and it's really to do with why we wanted a major record deal." Source:  Record Mirror 09/12/78.
SEVERIN: "it's another one about choice. You can either go along with the way things are or... It's very personal to the band on one level. The whole things about the uncompromising Banshees. It's saying that we can change to go overground but at the same time we know we'd be worse than ourselves." Source:  Melody Maker 09/12/78.
 
     

 

THE STAIRCASE (MYSTERY)

 

SINGLE

 
 
  UK 7" Single Track Listing  
 
 
  The Staircase (Mystery) 7" Single Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  POSP 9 
Click on cover for full scan

 

The Staircase (Mystery)
20th Century Boy
 
  Released: 23/03/79  
  UK Chart: No. 24  
  US Chart: Not Released  
  Sleeve Design: Banshees/Polydor Art Dept.  
  Producer: A Side: Nils Stevenson  
  Producer: B Sides: Nils Stevenson/Mike Stavrou  
       

 

IMPORTS/PROMOS

 
 
  Dutch 7" Import Single Track Listing  
 
 
  The Staircase (Mystery) 7" Single Dutch Import - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  2059 089 
Click on cover for full scan

 

The Staircase (Mystery)  
20th Century Boy
 
  Notes: Housed in a 3D effect sleeve.

 

 
  Japanese 7" Import Single Track Listing  
 
 
  Hong Kong Garden 7" Single Japanese Import Front Cover - Click Here For Full Cover 
Cat:  DPQ 6137  
Click on cover for full scan
The Staircase (Mystery)
20th Century Boy
 
       

 

PRESS

 
 
  Smash Hits 05-18/04/79  
 
 
  The Staircase (Mystery) Advert - Click Here For Bigger ScanApart from the fact that most of today's records are heavier sounding, a large chunk of '70s new wave seems to be evolving into re-runs of either '50s rock 'n' roll, early '60s beat-pop, or as in this case, late '60s acid-rock.  The 'mystery' of the song is solved if you speculate that the band were zonked out of their brains when they wrote it.  This is not necessarily a criticism; just an observation.  In fact both sides of the record (the flip is their version of Marc Bolan's '20th Century Boy') are powerfully attractive. 

Cliff White

 
 


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VIDEO

 
 
 

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  Description:  
  The Band:  Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, John McKay, Kenny Morris.  Shot 01/79.  Video opens with an animated musical dome of two figures dancing before it leads into a straight band performance.  During the middle instrumental passage there is a scene of a man falling down stairs.  This section was inspired by a scene in the original Hitchcock version of 'Psycho' where private detective Arbogast is murdered on the stairs of the Bates family  home.  The video ends with Siouxsie clumsily playing/hitting a grand piano.  
     
  Director:  
  Clive Richardson  
     
  Availability:  
  Once Upon A Time Video  
     

 

CREDITS

     
  The Staircase (Mystery) Lyrics  
 
 
 

Staircase lying face up
Stair cat sat on the mat
Looking down

Slide down the banister
Take the escalator
Slide down the banister
Or try the elevator

I was standing on the landing
Now I'm standing in the hall
Looking up

Wont someone assist me
Solve this mystery
Somebody assist me
Arrange the symmetry

Muffled footsteps on the carpet
Spiral steps start spinning
Around me

Which floor which ceiling
You're off balance
Which floor which ceiling
It's all upside down

Staircase lying face up
Stare cat sat on the mat
Looking down

 
     
  The Staircase (Mystery) Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: "There's something about a staircase. It's so unpredictable and exciting at the same time. That feeling of displacement, vertigo when you're at the top looking down or at the bottom looking up." Source:  Melody Maker 17/02/79.
SIOUXSIE: "That's more a song about curiosity and fear, it's not a great political statement or anything." Source:  Sounds 07/04/79.
SIOUXSIE: "The song's just taking a very day-to-day thing, and the nature of that thing is very... mysterious." Source:  NME 31/03/79.
SIOUXSIE: "Yeah it's very much a memory of them. Especially in my house, people were always falling down the stairs in it." Source:  Sounds 07/04/79.
SEVERIN: "Sioux had written the lyrics and she knew what it was about but they had a different interpretation and they wanted a different sleeve. So me, Nils and Sioux wanted to go one way and they wanted the other... and that was the democracy of it." Source:  Sounds 15/09/79.
 
     

 


     
  20th Century Boy Lyrics  
 
 
 

Friends say it's fine
Friends say it's good
Everybody says he's
Just like Robin Hood

I move like a cat
Talk like a rat
Sting like a bee
Babe I wanna be your man

Well it's plain to see
You were meant for me
I'm your toy
Your Twentieth Century boy

Twentieth Century toy
I wanna be your boy
Twentieth Century Toy
I wanna be your boy

Friends say it's fine
Friends say it's good
Everybody says it's
Just like Robin Hood

Fly like a plane
Drive like a car
Hold out your hand
Babe I wanna be your man

Well it's plain to see
You were meant for me
I'm your toy
Your Twentieth Century boy

Twentieth Century toy
I wanna be your boy
Twentieth Century toy
I wanna be your boy

 
     
  20th Century Boy Credits  
     
 

Marc Bolan - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
McKay - Guitar
Morris - Drums