(2 minutes silence)
...In Flanders fields
The poppies grow
Between the crosses
Row on row
That mark out place
We are the dead...
Coronets rest on a death's head mask
No-one is safe while the curfew lasts
But crusted orbs glitter, sceptres 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
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
What colour shall we have today?
Depends on how you feel I 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
My eyes went up to Heaven
You didn't say I'd be blind
without them
Icons-feed the fires
icons-falling from the spires
Thine eyes rain down from Heaven
You always said I'd be blind
without them
Icons-feed the fires
Icons-falling from the spires
Those words hang like vicious spittle
dribbling from that tongue
Close your eyes to your lies
Force feed more pious meat
Those nebulous codes and disiplines
Stick in that new born throat
Instill a lie-an artificial eye
to view a perfect land
Icons-feed the fires
Icons-falling from the spires
Can I?-Stick skewers in my skin
and whirl a dervish spin
Can I?-set myself on fire
to prove some kind of desire
Icons-feed the fires
Icons-falling from the spires
The guilt is golden
The guilt is golden
Those ageless lies
The shuttered eyes
It's the nightpiece
It's the Icon
This catacomb compels me
Corroding and inert
It weights and tries to pull me
Must I resist or re-assert?
The unchanged and the unchangeable
Doing the zombierama
Singing Oh come and be like me,
We're all sisters and brothers
Ejected to this state of being
Don't bury me with this
I'm in a state of catalepsy
Can I really exist?
Clawing from the inside
Drowning in your chant
Thoughts come flooding through me
Despairing unity
The unchanged and the unchangeable
Doing the zombierama
Singing Oh come and be like me,
We're all sisters and brothers
Red and white carnations
Can't intoxicate my brain
This blissful suffocation
It is driving me to pain
Oh what a bloody shame
The unchanged and the unchangeable
Doing the zombierama
Singing Oh come and be like me,
We're all sisters and brothers
I'm not your sister
Or your brother
Don't bury me with this
Join hands-join hands
We're all sisters and brothers
Sisters and brothers
I can't relate to you
You're no relation of mine
Hanging....
Hanging from your daisy chains
Swinging in the trees
Running from your enemies
And falling 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 out at party games
Dancing in the shadows
Up and down on the see-saw
Balancing the scales
You're drunk
Yet you're balancing the scales
Someone to blame
Someone to shame
Someone who you can claim
Go back the to pass the parcel
And follow the leader
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....
The word you learn to love The disapproval that you hate that's Mother from Mother
They teach you to respect... Makes you always want to please Mother Mother
The one who keeps you warm The one who keeps you warm And shelters you from harm And shelters you from harm Watch out she'll stunt your mind She'll open up your mind 'Til you emulate her kind To make you good and make you kind Is that Mother? Mother
Downstairs I don't know Downstairs I don't know If it's the springs in her bed Why I feel safe in my bed Or her joints I hear When I know I'm alone Creaking overhead She must be watching overhead Mother Mother
She'll twist the words you speak She'll kiss and say goodbye If she thinks you're near escape If you want to go away Mother Mother
So she clutches at her brood So she gathers up her brood And sits across its face And smiles into their face She sucks up all its energy She beams down vital energy And smothers their last breath She gave us out first breath Oh Mother Mother
The thing you grow to hate The love you won't forget
All songs written and arranged by Siouxsie and the Banshees except:
Poppy Day
words: John McCrae
Mother/Oh Mein Papa
MOTHER
Lyrics: Siouxsie and the Banshees
OH MEIN PAPA
Music: Burkhardt
Lyrics: Turner/Parsons
(Published by Peter Maurice Music Co. Ltd)
Siouxsie Sioux - Voice, Piano
John McKay - Guitar, Saxophone
Steven Severin - Bass Guitar
Kenny Morris - Drums, Percussion
Co-produced by Nils Stevenson and Mike Stavrou (For Air Studios).
Recorded at Air Studios, May June 1979.
Engineered by Mike Stavrou. Assisted by Ian Morais.
Outer Sleeve: Photography Adrian Boot
Illustration: John Maybury
Design: Rob O'Connor