“The Life of a Song: ‘Song to the Siren’”

• By David Cheal
• Financial Times
• 22-Apr 2016

[ Excerpt ]

In 1970, Buckley set the record straight, releasing “Siren” on his experimental Starsailor album, which flopped. Buckley died in 1975 from a heroin overdose and remained a peripheral, cultish figure.

But “Song to the Siren” continued to exert its siren-like attraction to the music cognoscenti. Ivo Watts-Russell, co-founder of the quintessentially indie label 4AD, counted the song among his favourites. In 1983, he was assembling a group of musicians under the name This Mortal Coil to record a single. As a B-side, he wanted “Song to the Siren”. This Mortal Coil’s musicians included guitarist Robin Guthrie and singer Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins, and it was they who recorded “Song to the Siren”. Their reading set the template for those that were to follow — drifty, druggy, drenched in reverb, a perfect setting for lyrics such as “Did I dream you dreamed about me?”. Fraser, a Scot, embellished the melody with melismas that seemed part-Caledonian folk, part-Middle Eastern ululation. The B-side became an A-side, and went on to sell half a million copies.

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