JOIN HANDS

 

    Join Hands

      1979

 

- Poppy Day

- Regal Zone

- Placebo Effect

- Icon

- Premature Burial

- Playground Twist

- Mother - Oh Mein Papa

- The Lords Prayer

 

Poppy Day

(2 minutes of Silence)

In Flanders fields
The poppies grow
Between the crosses
Row on row
That mark our place
We are the dead...

 

Regal Zone

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

 

Placebo Effect

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

 

Icon

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 disciplines
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 

Icons -- feed the fires
Icons -- falling from the spires

 

Premature Burial

This catacomb compels me
Corroding and inert
It weighs and tries to pull me
Must I resist or re-assert? 

The unchanged and the unchangeable
Doing the zombie-rama
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 zombie-rama
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 zombie-rama
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

 

Playground Twist

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
and you're balancing the scales 

Someone to blame
Someone to shame
Someone who you can claim
Go back 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...

 

Mother - Oh Mein Papa

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 our first breath)
Oh Mother (Mother) 

The thing you grow to hate (The love you won't forget)

 

note perso : le plus "coupant" des albums des Banshees, un rasoir sonique et émotionnel qui taille au plus profond de l'auditeur d'étranges blessures. Fascinant et bien souvent génial, Join Hands est une suite en forme de descente aux Enfers de The Scream. Mother et Premature Burial reste des sommets insurpassables. Le plus dur des albums des Banshees et un de leurs plus grands Chefs-d'Oeuvre.