Siouxsie and the Banshees "Peek-A-Boo"

 

Buckle up, this is a long one...

Today is my birthday so it would be no surprise to anyone if I posted yet another Depeche Mode song, but that's not what I am doing. I said the topic this week was all about the songs who informed who I am, and this one was integral to that entire process.

I had never heard of Siouxsie and the Banshees before encountering them late one night on MTV, most likely while watching 120 Minutes some evening, probably in the summer. From the very first sound of "Peek-A-Book" with its reversed instrumental track. The effect is jarring, but not uncomfortably so; to my ears it was intriguing. I mean, who the fuck does that? Yeah, Missy Elliott did years later, but other than the Beatles, how many artists have tried to build an entire (alternative) pop song built around a track played in reverse?

My mind was blown and I wanted to hear it again and again. This was well before the internet, before YouTube, and certainly before music streaming, so unless the video for "Peek-A-Boo" was replayed on MTV immediately the only way to hear that euphonic sound again was to go out and buy the album.

And so, I did.

In eighth grade I had a portable stereo (which back in the 80s was still several pounds) that included a CD player. With it I had received some CD singles to listen to, back when they were three inch mini-CDs, but the first CD I actually bought with my own money was Siouxsie and the Banshees Peepshow.

Not Depeche Mode; it was 1988 and I hadn't started my lifelong obsession with Depeche Mode until Christmas of 1989. Before Depeche Mode, my favorite band was INXS, but I had most of their albums on tape. With limited funds I wasn't about to go out and replace my tape collection with CDs of music I already had.

So yeah, my first purchased compact disc was Peepshow.

I love music, which should be immediately obvious for a person that has a music blog, but it is something ingrained within me. It's literally in my DNA, as evidenced by the strong attraction music has on many of my relatives, most strongly on my mother's side of the family.

As I was growing up and forming my own sense of self, I thought that everyone felt as strongly about music as I did. I thought that all of the cool and popular kids were listening to good music as well. To me, in my mind, liking good music made one cool (and honestly, I still do). 

So, if I wanted to me cool, if I wanted to be liked, fuck, if I wanted to be popular, then I had to listen to great music, right?

That was my assumption.

I scribbled the names of bands in my notebooks during class, including Siouxsie and the Banshees.

I brought my portable CD player over to my friend Matt's house where he and I brought out CDs to sahre with Amy and Tasha, two girls from our class. I put on this song and waited for them all to be impressed by the song, and in turn, awed by me, for sharing such music with them.

That...

Well, that did not happen.

Amy and Tasha did not love "Peek-A-Boo."

I shared Siouxsie with them.

They put on Young MC "Bust A Move."

Listen, it was the late 80s/early 90s, and there's nothing wrong with Young MC or that track. It's actually quite good.

But come on, which one is cooler? It's "Peek-A-Boo," right?

Right?

And that's kind the thing: here we are, almost 40 years later and I still beleive with all of my heart that Siouxsie, that the Banshees, that "Peek-A-Boo" are all cool as fuck.

Maybe that tells you a bit about who I was as a teenager, and now, today, as a man that is increasingly getting closer to being an "old man."

Eventually I realized that the popular kids were definitely not listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees, but the cool kids were, or at least, the kids that I thought were cool. 

So if the popular kids weren't listening to what was cool, then fuck them, I don't care, I don't want to be popular. I want to be with the cool kids listening to Gothic rock.

And that's who I was.

That's who I am.

I'm the guy that fell in love with everything that's a bit left of center, the things that are probably not mainstream, and maybe not popular with everyone. That describes most of the music that I love, as well as the many of the films, and certainly my politics.

And it all started with Siouxsie.

It made me who I am.

Thank you for that, Siouxsie and the Banshees. Happy birthday to me!

Enjoy!