Cities In Dust Hong Kong Garden Dear Prudence Siouxsie And The Banshees

Cities In Dust Album: Tinderbox (1985)
Hong Kong Garden Album: The Peel Sessions (1978)
Dear Prudence Album: Hyæna (1984)
by Siouxsie And The Banshees

Cities In Dust describes the fate of the city of Pompeii, buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It is one of Siouxsie and the Banshees' most recognized songs.

"That was really inspired by a visit to Pompeii," frontwoman Siouxsie Sioux told Creem. "There's quite a lot of tourism there, but the place itself transcends all that. You can think you're the only person there. It's quite immense, and at the end of the day, seeing the petrified bodies, it had a strong effect on me. The song was written, the music was written, when we got back from Italy, I wrote the lyrics. It was dedicated to one of the petrified bodies. It almost looked as if there was someone underneath this kind of plaster cover. I almost expected it to get up and move."

Cities In Dust has been used in a number of TV series, including:

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ("Vote for Kennedy, Vote for Kennedy" - 2018)
13 Reasons Why ("Smile, Bitches," "The Missing Page" - 2018)
The Carrie Diaries ("Kiss Yesterday Goodbye" - 2013)
Gossip Girl ("Woman on the Verge" - 2008)
The L Word ("Lesbians Gone Wild" - 2008)
NCIS ("Trojan Horse" - 2007)
Gilmore Girls ("One's Got Class and the Other One Dyes" - 2002)

Cities In Dust also shows up in these movies:

Atomic Blonde (2017)
Califórnia (2015)
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
Out of Bounds (1986)

Garbage covered Cities In Dust for their four-song 12" Witness to Your Love EP, a vinyl exclusive Record Store Day release on April 22, 2023. They made the EP, which also features two outtakes from the No Gods No Masters sessions, available to streaming services a week later.

If you think the title sounds like the name of a Chinese restaurant, you're right. Said Siouxsie: "I'll never forget, there was a Chinese restaurant in Chislehurst called 'The Hong Kong Garden.' Me and my friend were really upset that we used to go there and like, occasionally when the skinheads would turn up it would really turn really ugly. These gits were just go in on mass and just terrorize these Chinese people who were working there. We'd try and say 'Leave them alone,' you know. It was a kind of tribute." (from Punk Top Ten Interview, August 6, 2001.

Siouxsie and the Banshees were a UK punk group formed in London in 1976. Siouxsie Sioux (real name: Susan Dallion) was the lead singer. She and the Banshees' initial lineup emerged from the Bromley Contingent, a notorious group of punks inspired by the Sex Pistols. In addition to bassist Steve Severin and guitarist Marco Pirroni, the band included drummer John Simon Ritchie, who assumed the name Sid Vicious. They disbanded after one gig, Vicious joining the Sex Pistols and Pirroni later joining Adam And The Ants. Sioux and Severin re-formed their band the next year with guitarist Peter Fenton and drummer Kenny Morris. By 1979 Fenton and Morris had left to be replaced by drummer Budgie (real name Peter Clark) and for a short period Robert Smith of The Cure. After a succession of other guitarists came and left the band finally split in 1996. Sioux and Budgie, who later married, also recorded as the Creatures.

Hong Kong Garden was the first of 17 Top 40 singles that Siouxsie and the Banshees achieved in the British charts. Five years later they recorded their biggest ever UK hit with their cover of The Beatles' "Dear Prudence." In 1991, "Kiss Them for Me" became their only US Top 40 hit, peaking at #23. It did better over the Atlantic than in the UK where it only reached #32.

Hong Kong Garden was featured on the soundtrack of Sofia Coppola's 2006 film Marie Antoinette with the addition of a 20 second orchestral string intro. heard here.

Hong Kong Garden had its genesis in a song guitarist John McKay was working on entitled "People Phobia." Steve Severin recalled to Mojo magazine May 2014: "'Hong Kong Garden' had happened in the same way as all our early songs: McKay would present the beginning of a chord sequence and would work around it, shape it, arrange it. Adding an Oriental feel with xylophone and the gong at the end seemed dead obvious."

"Dear Prudence" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as "the White Album"). The song was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. Written in Rishikesh during the group's trip to India in early 1968, it was inspired by actress Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence Farrow, who became obsessive about meditating while practising with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.[1] Her designated partners on the meditation course, Lennon and George Harrison, attempted to coax Farrow out of her seclusion, which led to Lennon writing the song.

Lennon wrote "Dear Prudence" using a finger-picking guitar technique that he learned from singer-songwriter Donovan. Its lyrics are simple and innocent and celebrate the beauty of nature. The Beatles recorded the song at Trident Studios in late August 1968 as a three-piece after Ringo Starr temporarily left the group out of protest at McCartney's criticism of his drumming on "Back in the U.S.S.R." and the tensions that typified the sessions for the White Album. The final recording also features contributions from Mal Evans, Jackie Lomax and John McCartney. A demo for the song, recorded at George Harrison's Kinfauns home before the album's sessions, was released on the 2018 Super Deluxe edition of the White Album.

"Dear Prudence" has received praise from music critics, with many praising its lyrics and the band's performance. Lennon later selected it as one of his favourite songs by the Beatles. The song has been covered by many artists, including the Jerry Garcia Band, Ramsey Lewis and Siouxsie and the Banshees, whose version was a top-five hit in the UK in 1983.

Hyæna is the sixth studio album released on 8 June 1984 by Polydor Records. The opening track, "Dazzle", featured strings played by musicians of the London Symphonic Orchestra (LSO), a 27-piece orchestra called the "Chandos Players"; it was scored from a tune that Siouxsie Sioux had composed on piano. Hyæna is the only studio album that guitarist Robert Smith of the Cure composed and recorded with Siouxsie and the Banshees. Track 6 on the US release and track 10 on the 2009 remaster.