*These hidden videos were discovered when 'ripping' the DVD content.  It's still not clear how they are reached via any normal method

All songs remastered

All songs remastered

"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."

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' with its lounge-like languor, the pungent 'Stargazer' and, here for 5the first time, 'Dizzy'.  By now, though, this continued 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

She, Budgie (Mr. Sioux since 1992) and Steve Severin reformed this year for live dates, something that only seemed morally suspect because their break-up in '96 was presented as a response to the Sex Pistols' reunion.  But however you slice it - money grabbing nostalgia cruise or triumphant return - this 14 track Best Of will remind the world what an excellent singles band they were behind the gothic veil.  They deserve to sit in the same paddock as Madness, Squeeze and The Cure (the latter, of course, a band with which they shared Robert Smith more than once).

That this collection is actually a digest of two existing compilations, Once Upon A Time (1981) and Twice Upon A Time (1992), means it's frustratingly incomplete.  Nonetheless, it's crammed with delights, from the fragrant punk gems Hong Kong Garden and Happy House, to more sophisticated later experiments such as Peek A Boo and the little-heard Face To Face from Batman Returns.  There's nothing from the Superstition album, but we could go to an early grave listing what's not here: Fireworks, Dazzle, Melt! etc.

One indisputable fact arises: the '80s were the Banshees' golden years.  This is made clear by the widescreen Israel, the heady Spellbound, Cities In Dust (their lost classic), even jangly covers Dear Prudence and This Wheel's On Fire.

There's also the obligatory one new track, Dizzy.  Aromatic, but mannered and indistinct, it adds the only wrong turn to an otherwise fantastic journey. 

4/5  

Andrew Collins

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
Smith - Guitar
Budgie - Drums

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 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

Severin - 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

Do you hear this breath
It's an obsessive breath
Can you feel this beat
It's an obsessive heart-beat
Waiting to be joined with its obsession

I close my eyes
But I can't sleep
The thin membrane can't veil
The branded picture of you
The signs and signals show
The traffic lights say go
Again you baffle me,
Pretending not to see...me

I broke into your room
I broke down in my room
Touched your belongings there
And left a lock of my hair
Another sign for you
You screamed into my face
Get the hell out of my place
Another sign for me?
Can you forgive me?
For not understanding your ways

You know sometimes you take it all too far
Then I remember
It's a game between you and me
A divine test for us two
It's all in my imagination
Yes they even say that our mission 
Is only my obsession

Do you hear this breath
It's an oppressive breath
Suffocating in the poison
Of your obsession

Can you feel this beat
It's a possessive beat
Your pulse stops in the claws
Of your obsession

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice & Bells
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
McGeoch - Guitar
Caroline Lavelle - Cello
Anne Stephenson - Violin
Virginia Hewes - Violin

Bad word,
Or bad deed,
Unpunished invites grief,
Here's Rawhead and Bloodybones
Reaching from
Dark cupboard
Crouching under stair,
Lurking in chimney,
Pond or well
We're down here,
Held here
Dragged here
And drowned here by
Rawhead and Bloodybones
Pop eyed,
Horns,
Bushy tailed
Long teeth and
Claws as well
Rawhead and Bloodybones

Here in my cot
Where my cot loves me
I'll stay here a while
In the cotton wool cocoon
'Till the chrysalis is ripe
'Till the time is right
With this feeling of insecurity
I have to shrink back inside
Run and hide

Back in the cocoon
Hugging my knees
Watching my insides
The skinned glow worm writhings

Lying in blankets
I've been here a while
Tapping out rhythms
Against the mattress and wall
The heat melts the sheets
Another layer is peeled
Tapping out rhythms

Just my cot, the wallpaper and me
I've been here awhile
Tapping out rhythms
Still finding charms in the memory
Of those constrictor arms
Glowing in the dark in my luminous green
A pearl beaded lizard
Bathed in a gossamer scent
With my heat detector lip-pit
Pulling at the newly formed tissue

Lying in blankets
I've been here awhile
Tapping out rhythms against the mattress and wall

Waiting to loose the bandages
Waiting for new appendages

Lying in blankets
I've been here a while
I've been here too long
Banging out rhythms
Listen for other tapings
Banging out rhythms
Back in the cocoon

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

Instrumental

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

You clamber up
And look behind
Their watchful eyes
The helping hands
A hen that's fierce
And painted blue
With red eyes
Wants to swallow you

A dragon dives and soars on tracks
The hands that strap you to its back
You turn around and look behind
Their smiling eyes won't help you down

Their tiny hands
Their tiny feet
Such little hearts
To miss a beat
Grotesque dwarves
In mirrored rooms
Pulled and taut
A thousand yous

Staring back through stinging tears
Remembering those funhouse thrills
The paint box tunes and wild balloons
Their watchful eyes, you start to swoon

Oh painted vile in lurid hue
The snarling horse that waits for you
Its motor whirr's and colours curl
Inside your head the monsters whirl
 
Its motor whirls and colours curl
Inside your head the monsters whirl

In sucked out
Time stood still
Roundabout back
Carousel
Time stood still
And you remember it well
Carousel

Send me forward, say my feelings
But all the signals, send me reeling
Jigsaw feeling

One day I'm feeling total
The next I split in two
My eyes are doing somersaults
Staring at my shoes

My brain is out of my hand
There's nothing to prevent
The impulse is quite meaningless
in a cerebral non-even

Send me forward, say my feelings
But all the signals, send me reeling
Jigsaw feeling

Five fingers do my walking
Ten toes unravel knots
Amorphous jigsaw pieces
falling into slots

Send me forward, say my feelings
But all the signals, send me reeling
Jigsaw feeling

So I just sit in reverie
Getting on my nerves
The intangible bonds that keep me
Sitting on the verge....
Of a breakdown
Of a reaction
Of a result
Complete me, defeat me, maybe

Severin - 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

O pull on the rein and haul me in
Back to the start where eyes first blink to see
A flowing mane a cut-glass limb
And they're falling soaring so rhythmically

O pull on the rein and haul me in back to the start
Rebirthed in ecstasy with cherubim and seraphim
When I was falling soaring so rhythmically
Falling soaring falling for you so completely

The Rapture unfurling blues and greens
The Rapture a swirling violet stream
Mystic majestic entangled in a web of curling vapour thread
Encaptured by forces unseen
Enraptured an eclipse intoxicating
Strangely not inside strangely not outside
Drowning in the middle of an eerie transition
And I don't know your name
Never been alive yet I haven't died
I hover disembodied in a semi-wakened haze

Floating far above the cloud
Sinking far below the ground
Only my senses remain

The Rapture unfurling blues and greens
The Rapture a swirling violet stream
Mystic majestic entangled in a web of iridescent curling vapour thread
Floating far above the cloud
Sinking far below the ground
No form only my senses remain

Wondering if I dare to say your name
Wondrous thoughts embalmed avow you came
By the crescent disc rising amethyst
How can love remain the same unchanged?
Moonlight plays upon this sunken brow
Midnight ink bleeds wet mercurial clouds
By the crescent disc rising amethyst
Somnambulist unharnessed storms the plough
By the crescent disc rising amethyst
How can love remain the same unchained?

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

Monitor outside
For the people inside
A prevention of crime
A passing of time

The come and they go
It's a passing of time
They come and they go
Whilst we sit in our homes

Sit back and enjoy
The real McCoy

Our new air of authority
Our sentinel of misery
His face was full of intent
And we shook excitement
Then the victim stared up
Looked strangely at the screen
As if her pain was our fault
But that's entertainment
What we crave for inside
No more second rate movies
From those people outside

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

Get your head down to the ground
Shake it all around
A dirty sound
Put your knees into your face
And see if you can race
Real slow

It's a slowdive
When you die slow
Oh it's a low jive
Do the slowdive

Now you jump back like a hound
Emit a howling sound
Dig those limbs into the floor
And holler out for more

And you revel in the dips
When your backbone slips
Taking honeysuckle sips
From your rolling hips
It shifts and it shifts
It's a slowdive when you die slow
When you come alive it's a low jive
Do the slowdive

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

In the sharp gust of love
My memory stirred
When time wreathed a rose
A garland of shame
Its thorn my only delight
War torn, afraid to speak
We dare to breathe

Majestic
Imperial
A bridge of sighs

Solitude sails
In a wave of forgiveness
On angels' wings
 
Reach out your hands
Don't turn your back
Don't walk away
How in the world
Can I wish for this?
Never to be torn apart
Close to you
'Till the last beat of my heart

At the close of day
The sunset cloaks
These words in shadowplay
Here and now, long and loud
My heart cries out

And the naked bone of an echo says
Don't walk away

Reach out your hands
I'm just a step away
How in the world
Can I wish for this?
Never to be torn apart
Close to you
'Till the last beat of my heart

How in the world
Can I wish for this?
Never to be torn apart
'Till the last beat
'Till the last fleeting beat of my heart