Sisters of Mercy

Two Worlds Apart, Two Worlds Together

Not going to talk about the electoral apocalypse just yet.

I’ve always vaguely known that the Sisters of Mercy/Terri Nunn song Under The Gun is a cover/reworking of a Billie Hughes song, but I only just looked it up. Holy guacamole! It’s so 80’s synth-ballad it could be from the Ladyhawke soundtrack!

I am – as always – astonished at the level of talent that allows Andrew Eldritch to turn what we have above into a masterpiece while simultaneously being a complete (although highly entertaining and often surprisingly justified) dick to everyone around him.

In the heat of the day

When you’re sitting in a room that’s just slightly too warm for comfort, the temperature outside is in excess of 40°C and you’re a bit sleep deprived because last night was too hot, there’s just something about the hollow synth drums, the rumbling base, the jangly echoing guitar, the shrieking choir and the disdainful muttering of Dominion by the Sisters of Mercy that takes you to another, strange aural place where it may not be any cooler but the heat seems more appropriate – even, in some fashion – epic.

Or maybe that’s just me…

Pimp-Stick Good, Geopolitics Bad

And while we’re on the subject of my execrable music taste and Russia, how about this offering from cane-wielding 80s poison-king (not my phrase, but too good to pass up) Andrew Eldritch and the Sisters of Mercy?

The second half of the song is apparently about Eldritch’s conviction that West Berlin should be abandoned and handed over to the Soviets, which, as the song was released in 1987 only two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, shows that however good he was wielding a pimp-stick he really wasn’t so hot on geopolitics. Or keeping his band together for that matter. In fact about the only member/former member of Sisters who doesn’t loath Eldritch with a passion is Doktor Avalanche, and Doktor Avalanche is a drum machine. Oh well, the music is good. In my opinion.