Israel by punk/post-punk band Siouxsie And The Banshees
Little orphans in the snow
With nowhere to call a home
Start their singing
Waiting through the summertime
To thaw your hearts in wintertime
That’s why they’re singing…
Waiting for a sign to turn blood into wine
The sweet taste in your mouth–turned bitter in its glass
Israel…in Israel
Israel…in Israel
Shattered fragments of the past
Meet in veins on the stained glass
Like the lifeline in your palm
Red and green reflects the scene
Of a long forgotten dream
There were princes and there were kings
Now hidden in disguise–cheap wrappings of lies
Keep your heart alive with a song from inside
Even though we’re all alone
We are never on our own when we’re singing
There’s a man who’s looking in
And he smiles a toothless grin
Because he’s singing…
See some people shine with glee
But their song is jealousy
Their hate is clanging–maddening
In Israel…will they sing Happy Noel
Israel…in Israel
Israel…in Israel
In Israel will they sing Happy Noel
Given the preponderance of pro palestinian bands, my initial inclination was to write off the song as anti-Israel. But then I saw it was released in 1980, before it became well and truly popular to trash the Jewish state.
Then I read this:
In early September 1976, the Bromley Contingent followed the Pistols to France, where Siouxsie was beaten up for wearing a black armband with a swastika on it. She claimed her intent was to shock the bourgeoisie, not to make a political statement. She would later write the songs “Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)” (in memory of the anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield) and the single “Israel”.
But the more I read about this band, the more I saw it was hard to get a read on them.
What about the accusation of anti-Semitism? Come on, there was that original lyric in “Love In A Void”: “Too many Jews for my liking”…
“That was a Severin lyric.”
You sang it.
“Yeah, I sang it, but I took it as it was meant, as ‘skinflints’. Obviously a lot of people didn’t get it that way, so it was changed.”
Sadly, not in time to prevent the Far Right from claiming Siouxsie as one of their own. Dismayed by the NF’s attendance at gigs, she resorted to wearing a Star of David T-shirt as a middle finger to the BNP.
The sad postscript to all of this is that Siouxsie Sioux seems to have succumbed to the anti-Israel disease in recent times.
Nevertheless, Israel is this Saturday night’s music clip, partly because of its haunting lyrics, and partly because of the interesting story behind it.
