TINDERBOX

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


 

REMASTERED ALBUM

 
 
  UK CD Track Listing  
 
 
  Tinderbox Remastered UK Promo CD Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  531 489-3
Click on cover for full scan

 

The Original Album

Candyman
The Sweetest Chill
This Unrest
Cities In Dust
Cannons
Party's Fall
92º
Lands End

Bonus Tracks

Cities In Dust (12" Eruption Mix)
The Sweetest Chill (Chris Kimsey 12" Version)
Song From The Edge Of The World (JVC Version)
Starcrossed
 
 
   
  Notes:
All songs remastered
Liner notes courtesy of Paul Morley
 
  Released: 06/04/09  
  UK Chart: No.  
  US Chart: No.  
  Sleeve Design: Photo: Lucille Handberg/Design: Billy Houlston  
  Re-issue Design: Bold, London  
  Producer: Banshees/Churchyard  
  Digitally Remastered By: Kevin Metcalfe  
  Tapes Sourced By: Steven Severin/Pete Matthews  
       

 

LINER NOTES

 
 
  And then there was, hello darkness, a strange wind blowing, the world's peaceful order giving way to a certain violence, nature committing atrocities with haphazard fury, red of tooth and claw, heads and hearts trampled by hooves, set the radar screens flickering holocaust, the parties over but its only just begun, the leaves wither and no bud appears, the sea beautiful under the moon, time itself is starting to freeze over, the flash of a guillotine, certain divine rays break out of the soul in adversity, freedom is priceless, the seventh studio album by Siouxsie and the Banshees, in year of our lord 1986 A.D.  It was an apocalyptic thing and a half.  (It's always a wonder that you can talk about a group who had a series of Top 40 hits in such a way, as if they were a pop group like, say, The Doors, T.Rex, The Monkees and Kraftwerk, but one that consistently offered evidence of just how much beauty the talented can wrest from fear.  I am extremely happy that there existed in the world a pop group of whom you can quite happily say "they wrote songs that declared the world an activity of the mind."  As well as, you know, play loud, watch your back, it's behind you, because they sounded as though they came from a country where the capital city was called Cruelty, and they would spend the nights savouring the sufferings of the obscurer mystics - Peter of Alcantara, who managed to sleep no more than one hour a night, and Margaret Ebner, who for days at a time "could not unclench hr teeth; when she finally opened her mouth, it was to utter cries which exalted and terrorised her convent."  As well as, you know, their rhythmical histrionics are as agitated and jerky as the movements of a vampire.)

I'm not sure how you rank your Banshee albums - if you say put The Scream at number one, or Juju, or Kaleidoscope, or A Kiss In The Dreamhouse, or if you are feeling a little tense and needy, Hyaena, or even a little tender and broken hearted, Join Hands - but I sometimes think that Tinderbox is actually my favourite.  Certainly it's often a second favourite to whatever is at the top, the album where the group's haunted blend of the punk, the pop, the glam, the psychedelia, the metal, the baroque, the nursery rhyme, the horror story, the tirade, the violence, the gentle, the jagged, the alien, the monsters, the velvet and steel, the ice and flame, the forked energy, the gritty surrealism, the grim, the perfectionism, the delicate, the labyrinths, the superstition, THE WARNING, was at it's most sensationally assured and damned serene.  They were on a wavelength all of their own, and you can hear what and where they've been, as a group writing their own story, which consists of stories within stories about stories, from the very first seconds of the very first stinging, ringing, cursed and furious song, led by a voice full of other voices that is one of the most damned thrilling in rock.  They then keep up their illuminating attack - this is who we are, and this is what we do - all the way through the album, never letting up, fighting all manner of natural and supernatural forces with a prodigious resilience that offer glimpses of what might be in a better world.

To have such love for it is a bit perverse for me, as I'm of the generation that remains loyal to the Banshee guitarists/deputies that had all wandered into the desert by the time Tinderbox was made - my three favourite Banshee guitarists tend to be in the McGeoch, Smith, McKay area, and the Tinderbox guitarist was John Valentine Carruthers.  He was, of course, brave not just because he was taking over that role in the group that had historically ended with various forms of sickness, disease, breakdowns and trauma.  Brave also because the three guitarists best known in the role had left behind enough information about how the role should be played that it was difficult to know how the next in line could find room for their own thoughts.  For all their flirtations with other sounds, found sounds, little bursts of ancient atmosphere and present tension, and even though the guitars often chimed and scattered like bells and strings, Siouxsie and the Banshees were a famously distinctive guitar group.

What with one thing and another, perhaps because first of all they didn't really know what they were doing, or knew that they did not know what they were doing and turned that into a kind of advantage, they helped invent an electric guitar sound that somehow broke with rock conventions whilst radically reconfiguring some of the distressed fire breathing intensity of the wandering blues players.  The history of guitar playing started again - renewed itself - around that seventies English punk period, and the way those punk people responded to, say, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine and Lenny Kaye.  It was guitar playing that plugged into the idea of austere, sombre, besieged blues from a space age, or even a literary, philosophical perspective.  I guess drugs were involved too.

The Banshees guitar sound surged, sliced and stunned, both urgently and calmly, in ways that were also connected to The Stooges, the Velvets, Can, Roxy, even Beefheart's Magic Band - where the blues had also been taken on a trip through time and into outer space - but other less sourced tones and temperatures were introduced, other resonances and spooky implications.

Its how this guitar settled around, and inside, and over, and through the voice of Siouxsie that made it sound the way it did.  The guitar sound was a reflection of, a response to, the way words and sounds, describing all manner of internal frustrations and anguish, charged across Siouxsie's lashing tongue and scattered into the outside world.  Her voice and the guitar jousted and jostled with each other, and the flowering presence of Siouxsie's voice encouraged the guitar to find new positions, new hiding places, new ways to break into the open, to break down into silence, to crash into the shadows.  The guitars sent Siouxsie higher and higher, and lower and lower.

The guitar sounded the way it did because of the voice of Siouxsie, which required all sorts of discreet and less discreet accompanying movement to allow hr to bloom and swoop with the correct levels of articulate ferocity - as was happening elsewhere in Public Image and Joy Division because of the voices, the nervous disorders, the perilous decisions, of John Lydon and Ian Curtis.  This guitar sound developed because singers inspired by punk to find new ways to express themselves needed the dynamics of the rock guitar as a support, but because what they were singing about was so unconnected to the assumed rock tradition, where love and sex and so on was the sentimental standard, this rock guitar had to find its own ways of breaking free of the obvious and the clichéd.  This oblique, clipped but liberated guitar wasn't about sinewy lust or gaudy macho potency, snared in the present.  It was more serious, and more mental, crossing itself out, fighting through time, and always less obvious.

This mighty, melancholy, precisely imprecise guitar sound got handed from McKay to McGeoch to Smith, and each of them played this guitar sound - which McKay had plucked from the ground as if he was already aware of how the future players would deal with the idea of being a Banshees guitarist - in their own style, even as they accept the restrictive terms and conditions issued to them because they were a part of Siouxsie's carnal crew.  And there was John Carruthers, coming from the north, the slithery Sheffield crash funk of Clock DVA, and he had all this guitar history, and Banshees' history, to contend with - the straightjacket, the legacy, the expectation, the ghostly guitarists breathing down his neck, the fact that these guitarists saw and heard things inside the group that meant that something was going to eat them up - and he ended up playing on one of the finest Siouxsie and the Banshees guitar records.  And this was very much one that featured the classic combination of Severin's molten, salacious bass, Budgie beating time and time again with stirring focus, and the clash and closeness of the guitars - which a Led Zeppelin/Black Sabbath fan could enjoy as much as a Pop Group/Gang of Four fan - with Siouxsie's stern, lascivious voice in the wilderness and her WARNINGS about various things such as the weather and certain unresolved tensions and how to defend yourself from terror.

Perhaps Carruthers decided to play as empathetically and aggressively as possible to ensure some kind of force field was erected around him that might repel whatever curse there was on the head of Banshee guitarists.  Perhaps he very quickly accepted his role as something temporary and relished the nihilistic properties inherent in the job.  It would, naturally, all come to nought, and there wasn't much future in it for Carruthers, and the endless desert stretched before him, but either in acceptance or defiance of that inevitability, he represented the restless host of Banshee guitarists, this ravishing collection of displaced comrades, all competing for space and attention, with absolute authority.  You hear that invented sound, established and revised by McKay, McGeoch and Smith, and you hear new additions, corrections, confirmations.  You hear a whole new ferocity that doesn't abandon the rules, nor shrivel up because of them.  The Banshee guitarist lives again!  And so he must die.

You realise that very time Siouxsie and the Banshees found or nurtured or trapped a new guitarist, they became a fresh, ravenous new group, one that resembled the one before, but which shed its skin, and darted somewhere else.  It's why here at album seven, ten years or so into their life, they slash across their own history, extending it and defying it, as if they are making another debut.  This being a Siouxsie and the Banshees album, it is not too far fetched to consider that there is something in the notion that new guitar players were to the group new blood, and they needed an awful lot of this new blood to produce the kind of experience they were after, to maintain their youth, their looks and their emotional intensity.

Tinderbox has rocked to a close.  The door is shut.  Sweet is the night air.  There is a sudden calm.  And a pause for breath.

Paul Morley 18/12/08 Home

 
     

 

IMPORTS/PROMOS

 
 
  UK Promo CD Track Listing  
 
 
  Tinderbox Remastered UK Promo CD Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Click on cover for full scan

 

The Original Album

Candyman
The Sweetest Chill
This Unrest
Cities In Dust
Cannons
Party's Fall
92º
Lands End

Bonus Tracks

Cities In Dust (12" Eruption Mix)
The Sweetest Chill (Chris Kimsey 12" Version)
Song From The Edge Of The World (JVC Version)
Starcrossed 
 
 
   
  Notes:
All songs remastered
Liner notes courtesy of Paul Morley
 
  Released: 06/04/09  
  UK Chart: No.  
  US Chart: No.  
  Sleeve Design: Photo: Lucille Handberg/Design: Billy Houlston  
  Re-issue Design: Bold, London  
  Producer: Banshees/Churchyard  
  Digitally Remastered By: Kevin Metcalfe  
  Tapes Sourced By: Steven Severin/Pete Matthews  
       

 

PRESS

 
 
     
 
 
  Remastered CDs Advert - Click Here For Bigger Scan  
 
More press...
 
     

 

LP/CD/CASSETTE

 
 
  UK CD Track Listing  
 
 
  Tinderbox CD Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  829 145-2
Click on cover for full scan

 

 
 
   
  Notes: *CD only

 

 
  UK LP Track Listing  
 
 
  Tinderbox LP Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  SHELP 3
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  UK Cassette Track Listing  
 
   
  Tinderbox Cassette Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan  
Cat:  SHEMC 3
Click on cover for full scan
 
 
   
  Released: 18/04/86  
  UK Chart: No. 13  
  US Chart: No. 88  
  Sleeve Design: Photo: Lucille Handberg/Design: Billy Houlston  
  Producer: Banshees/Steve Churchyard  
       

 

IMPORTS/PROMOS

 
 
  US Import Promo LP Track Listing  
 
 
  Tinderbox Interview LP US Import Promo Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Click on cover for full scan

 

 

 

Interview
Cities In Dust
This Unrest
Cannons
92º
Candyman
 
  Japanese Import LP Track Listing  
 
 
  Tinderbox LP Japanese Import Front Cover 
Cat:  28CM 0493

 

Candyman
The Sweetest Chill
This Unrest
Cities In Dust
Cannons
Party's Fall
92º
Lands End
 
  Argentina Import LP Track Listing  
 
 
  Tinderbox LP Argentinean Import Front Cover - Click Here For Full Scan 
Cat:  829 145-1
Click on cover for full scan
Candyman
The Sweetest Chill
This Unrest
Cities In Dust
Cannons
Party's Fall
92º
Lands End
 
       

 

PRESS

 
 
  NME 19/04/86  
 
 
 

Tinderbox Advert - Click Here For Bigger ScanAfter the loopiness of their last opus 'Hyaena', 'Tinderbox' comes as something verging on a full circle, a kind of parched rendition of 'The Scream'.  The band themselves, apart from judging it "brilliant" (hmmm), see it as a coming together for the new look Banshees as they break in new guitarist John Valentine Carruthers. This explains the overall impression of a group suspended in aspic. The work abounds with oppressive apocalyptic visions, most of which seem desperately corny, 'Desert Island Discs' adapted for the swinging fall out shelter scene. The inner sleeve photos show Sioux apparently wearing a flamboyant leek on her head in a bid for Errol The Hamster chic. Severin looks petulant as ever whilst Budgie is rapidly mutating into a dangerous cross breed between Quentin Crisp and Jon Pertwee.  J. Valentine Carruthers belies his extravagant name but he will doubtless blossom strangely as will his current guitar application which remains in solid Banshees house style.  The choice of 'Candyman' as the last single is a mite perplexing.  Next to a song like 'Cannons', with its acoustic plateau providing asylum from their familiar epic chiming, 'Candyman' sounds like a forced adlibbing through a metallic mire. There¹s a strange obsession with heat running throughout.  '92°' with its erupting volcanoes and "crazed eruptions" makes reference to eating cactus.  Dare one read deeper?  For the tone of the album would suggest a group forging on in search of an inspirational oasis whilst surviving on unsatisfactory resources. 'This Unrest' looms, the sound of merciless troglodytes pounding away in a 21st Century chasm, interrupted by backwards tape loops and up tempo scrabbling guitars.  But lines like "Flesh and metal will fuse today" bring down what could have been an epic of oppressiveness.  Looking for some substance, some humanity apart from the after images of Sioux's nightmares, we find 'Party's Fall' with its softer, more fluid melodies. "Your parties fall around you/An aura of sadness abounds you": too many ideas in this vein would reinforce the disillusioned star cliché, but marooned amid the scorched moonscapes of the other songs, its melancholy soothes, but we could have done without the HM vocal harmonies. Once Sioux stood peerless in the art of proclamatory Armageddon mongering, but now her finest moments are of a more personal nature, the case for the defence being 'The Sweetest Chill': "Fingers like a fountain of needles/Shiver along my spine".  The acupuncturist of desire strikes again.  Sioux makes that shiver really shi-i-i-ver.  It cannot be mere coincidence that the song pivots around rain and showers.  Move over, Kate Bush!  The LP ends on a positive note in 'Lands End':  "Where the land falls to an end/This hidden tale begins/Take a walk with me down by the sea."  Bring out those hackneyed analogies!  'The Tempest', 'The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin'.  So when they get to the bottom they go back to the top?  Let's hope so.

 
 


More press...

 
     

 

CREDITS

     
  Candyman Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Candyman Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: " 'Candyman’ was trying to put across the unspeakability of child abuse, and again, trying not to sensationalise it, just coming up with a very strong picture of a character that was sickly sweet and oozing repulsiveness.  The amount of people who’ve been abused is incredible, and it’s only lately that the subject’s been brought out into the open. The whole thing’s such a power trip, and you realise the victims must have been so in fear of saying anything - cos they’ve been told by the perpetrator that they’ll go to hell or something. " Source:  Melody Maker 17/10/92.
CARRUTHERS: "Well, this is about child abusers. Certain people have suggested that it's also about drugs and drug-pushers, but it isn't really. Or at least it could be - Sioux's lyrics are always ambiguous. Even in Berlin where we were recording, we heard about the shocking rise in child abuse. If there's one thing Sioux really hates it's children being used against their will. It's a prime concern of hers." Source:  Melody Maker 1986.
SIOUXSIE: "It's really to do with grown ups' abuse of children's trust, whether it's sexual or not, the innocence and dependency as well. I just find anything to do with that is repulsive. Pornography or people showing their boobs, that's another thing. I'm not going to be puritanical about any of that because that's all grown ups." Source:  Record Mirror 15/05/86.
 
     

 


     
  The Sweetest Chill Lyrics  
 
 
 

Hearing you in my sleep
Feeling you your cadence seeps
Whispering in flashback the spectres of your memories
Fall in glistening showers such a tender descent
Intones this haunting lament

The sweetest chill

Fearing you but calling your name
Icy breath encases my skin
Fingers like a fountain of needles
Shiver along my spine
And rain down so divine

The sweetest chill

A drowning so sublime spins in a heavenly climb
Calling you tears thaw my sleep
Wanting you this hoary web is weaved
From this strange confusion
Grows a perverse communication
It entrails me and coils me around

The sweetest chill

Enchantment ebbs and whirls the sweetest chill
Enchantment ebbs and whirls oh the thrill

The sweetest chill

 
     
  The Sweetest Chill Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: "It touches on the death of a loved one, being touched by the chill of their presence..." Source:  NME 28/09/85.
CARRUTHERS: "This is about a visitation from a lover's spirit who is already dead - someone who comes back from the grave and greets her as a lover. I don't think Sioux wrote it from personal experience, but you never know. Whenever she tries to write a love song it always comes out from a very different standpoint. It's not exactly Bonnie Tyler, though Sioux can do a great Bonnie impersonation. Source:  Melody Maker 1986.
 
     

 


     
  This Unrest Lyrics  
 
 
 

This unrest beats out my breath
Disconnected thoughts jangle in a mess
This unrest crucifies my chest
Without anaesthetic it cuts
Through tumourous flesh

This unrest beats out my breath
This unrest beats in my chest

Discordant limbs watch unimpressed
At the aimless walk the mindless talk
The pictures leap out and dance for me
They laugh at me

As your bitterness closes in
You're feeling very old again
Ah just to sleep, without these thoughts
But the angels shout, resurrecting doubts

Ah we meet again, my trusty friend
Demanding new favours for old time's sake
Inside this captive frame
Come and claim your liberty

Metal and flesh will fuse today
These visions jump out and blast my days
Clean away .......

 
     
  This Unrest Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: "The title is self explanatory. Not this unrest within society, but within oneself." Source:  NME 28/09/85.
CARRUTHERS: "This is an extension of the nightmarish feeling you get when things are getting on top of you. It comes from a very "Night Shift"/"Jigsaw Feeling" feel. The music swirls like a dream - a score for "Nightmare On Elm Street". have you ever dreamt of being eaten alive?" Source:  Melody Maker 1986.
 
     

 


     
  Cities In Dust Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Cities In Dust Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: "Cities in Dust happened because it, (Pompeii), had a strong effect on me, seeing the remains of the petrified bodies still caught in time as a huge body print in the lava. The age was almost timeless, it’s such a vast amount of years but timeless as well." Source:  Villa Tempo Interview 19/04/86.
SIOUXSIE: "This was our first trip to Pompeii, another amazing experience. Seeing a whole civilisation petrified in lava was like putting yourself in the place at the time, and imagining how it must have been to be there when it happened. I find it really easy to do that, to get ghost images of life continuing as it was. I often wonder if that’s what real hauntings are - your imagination and your senses bringing things back to life. That’s why you’d never be able to capture it on film." Source:  Melody Maker 17/10/92.
SIOUXSIE: "It was whilst on tour in Italy and we were going south through to Toronto and the opportunity whilst travelling arose that we could go visit Pompeii so of course we went and I dunno, the impression was so powerful and like culminating in seeing the petrified bodies that had been left there 2000 years ago."
  Source:  Villa Tempo Interview 19/04/86.
 
     

 


     
  Cannons Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Cannons Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: " 'Cannon': "It was inspired by seeing a book programme about T. S. Eliot. I think it was. And it touched upon this freak weather period in the 20's, when it was either incredibly hot and oppressive or ridiculously cold when it shouldn't have been. Apparently, in desperation about what to do a cannon was shot into this oppressive sky every night in the hope of bursting a rain cloud. The image of this deserted town, with someone having to stay behind to fire the cannon, stuck with me." Source:  NME 28/09/8.
CARRUTHERS: "In Spanish medieval times, if it hadn't rained and the crops were suffering then they pointed a cannon into the sky in the hope of bursting the clouds." Bang! Source:  Melody Maker 1986.
 
     

 


     
  Party's Fall Lyrics  
 
 
 

Your parties fall around you
Another night beckons to you
Your parties fall around you
Another night beckons to you

Shadows look as you resist the gloom
Faded hues issue forth and bloom

A bed of leaves for a lover
Awake with a kiss and rise asunder
And when the party's over
You retreat in a realm of slumber

In your mind, crystal lights rebound
Wheels spin round and you hear the sound

Of autumn's call at party's fall

Through rose-tinted glass you still remember
The gladness, not sadness, only laughter

In your mind vicious lights rebound
Wheels spin round and you hear the sound

Of autumn's call at party's fall

The smile in the mirror grows weaker
The laughter you heard is growing fainter

Your parties fall around you
The night forgets to rouse you
Your party's fall astounds you
An aura of sadness abounds you

Glad rags sigh
Maybe you're alone
Maybe you're alone
Inside, don't hide

Hurting all the time
Hurting deep inside
Don't cry, don't cry

My happiness depends
On knowing this friend
Is never alone
On your own

 A party on our own
We'll have a party all our own
Inside
No sighs

 
     
  Party's Fall Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: "It's a slightly sad story about people dressing up all day to go out at nights. And that's all they do... The parties spoil perhaps when you get too old to do it." Source:  NME 28/09/85.
CARRUTHERS: "This is about people who go to thousands of parties and talk to everyone and lave the party and fine they haven't a friend in the world. In London there's a while vacuous circus of meeting pop stars and film stars and then departing and feeling sorry for yourself. We're never sorry for wankers". Source:  Melody Maker 1986.
 
     

 


     
  92º Lyrics  
 
 
 

The day drags by like a wounded animal
The approaching disease, 92 degrees
The blood in our veins and the brains in our head
The approaching unease, 92 degrees

Long ago in the headlines, they noticed it too
But too late for the loved ones and nearly for you

Shaky lines on the horizon
Snakey lines invade each person
Watch the red line creeping upwards
Watch the sanity line weaken

The volcanic depths of Hades' Ocean
Bubble under, these crazed eruptions
It wriggles and writhes and bites within,
Just below the sweating sun

I wondered when this would happen again
Now I watch the red line, reach that number again
The blood in our veins and the brains in our head
 
Drink the water with jagged glass
Eat the cactus with bleeding mouth
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

Shaky lines on the horizon
Snakey lines invade each person
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

 
     
  92º Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  SIOUXSIE: "That was sparked off by a short story I read where crimes would escalate when the temperature reached 92 degrees. It's about the rising panic of the people who know what's going to happen as the temperature rises towards that number. I mentioned it to Steve, who'd seen some alien from outer space film, in which, right at the end, a sheriff says: 'Yeah, just about at this temperature everybody goes crazy'." Source:  NME 28/09/85.
CARRUTHERS: "It's very near to blood temperature - the temperature of murder. The crime rate in America goes up by 200 per cent everytime the weather hits that figure. We've always been fascinated by scraps of information like that. People go apeshit at that temperature - any hotter and it's too uncomfortable to kill anyone!" Source:  Melody Maker 1986.
 
     

 


     
  Lands End Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Lands End Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  CARRUTHERS: "There's a funny story here. We were in Berlin recording this track when, half way through, the Lands End tragedy happened. The lyrics don't really correspond to that - it's more a lover's leap for eternity. " Source:  Melody Maker 1986.  
     

 


     
  Quarterdrawing Of The Dog  
 
 
 

Instrumental

 
     
  Quarterdrawing Of The Dog Credits  
     
  Sioux - Piano & Whistle
Severin - Bass
Carruthers  - Guitar
Budgie - Drums & Waterphone
 
     

 


     
  An Execution Lyrics  
 
 
 

This is what she saw
The unsuspecting horse was held fast to the ground
Whilst some soldiers split open it's belly
The guilty gypsy was shoved inside the horses belly
With only his head protruding from the dying beast
Another soldier then sewed up the wound
With the culprit inside, condemned to die
Along with the putrefying animal, screaming

 
     
  An Execution Credits  
     
 

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice & Piano
Severin - Piano, Bass & Drumbox
Budgie - Drums

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  Based on the 'myth' of Countess Bathory"She (Siouxsie) was reading this book about Countess Bathory, called 'Was Dracula A Woman?' or something.  She used to bath in the blood of virgins in the vain hope it would keep you young.  (Carruthers)  Source:  Zigzag 12/85.  
     

 


     
  Lullaby Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Lullaby Credits  
     
 

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

 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  King Ludwig II, the 'mad king' of Bavaria.  Source:  Downside Up liner notes.  
     

 


     
  Umbrella Lyrics  
 
 
 

Away from the dying rain, far away
From the pain washed drains
Under the darkening skies
Now under protecting lines
Beneath this unloved crimes
Relief is a gentle sigh
Dissolve these eyes so I may cry

 
     
  Umbrella Credits  
     
 

Sioux - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Carruthers  - Guitar
Budgie - Drums

 
     

 


     
  Song From The Edge Of The World Lyrics  
 
 
 

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

 
     
  Song From The Edge Of The World Credits  
     
  Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
Carruthers - Guitar
 
     
  Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment  
     
  BUDGIE: "We tried Mike Thorne for the single project 'Edge Of the World' and it didn't really work."  Source: Unknown source 1988.
SIOUXSIE: "It was disastrous! But because of the financial and time commitment we had to go with it. Luckily it was a single so it wasn't like a major disaster. After that fiasco we decided that from then onwards we were going to decide these things with our hearts rather than our heads. As usual it is only afterwards that you start cursing yourself for not having gone with your instincts in the first place."  Source: Unknown source 1988.
MCCARRICK: “It was an awful experience. No one seemed happy. Severin and Siouxsie were arguing. There was no creative spark, just this awful unrest.”  Source: The Authorised Biography 2002.
SEVERIN: “It was intended as a way to break the ice with John. We’d already written and demoed it with John Carruthers and we’d been looking for the right producer.”  Source: The Authorised Biography 2002.
 
     

 


     
  Starcrossed Lovers Lyrics  
 
 
 

TBC

 
     
  Starcrossed Lovers Credits  
     
  Severin - Lyrics
Sioux - Voice
Severin - Bass
Budgie - Drums & Percussion
Carruthers - Guitar