JOIN HANDS
   

1979
- Icon
- The Lords Prayer
(2 minutes of Silence)
In Flanders fields 
The poppies grow 
Between the crosses 
Row on row 
That mark our 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  
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
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
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
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...
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.