Song To The Siren was originally released on Tim Buckley‘s near-mythical Starsailor album. Long-since unavailable on CD, if you don’t have it you can buy it these days on iTunes. I think a re-issued vinyl made a fleeting re-appearance a couple of years ago before burying its head once again in the sands of time. Or you can read to the bottom and see what turns up…
There are two schools of thought surrounding the Starsailor LP. On one hand it’s considered a bit out-there and genius-like. On the other hand, it could just as easily be described as unlistenable, noodling avant-jazz-folk-funk. You’ll have your own thoughts on the matter I’m sure. Song To The Siren cuts through all of this by virtue of it being an old song by the time Buckley got around to cutting Starsailor. It’s moody and melancholic and features the trampoline-voiced Buckley switching back and forwards from baritone bass to fabulous falsetto, much like Buckley Jr (proving, I suppose, that young Jeff was merely a more angelic chip off the old block). Not avant-anything at all, it’s got some terrific atmospheric guitar going on just below those stellar vocals. If you haven’t heard it you’re in for a treat.
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Back in the 80s, standing proudly alone and not at all drowning amongst the flotsam and jetsom of the pop fodder du jour was This Mortal Coil‘s version. Essentially a Cocteau Twins’ track (Liz ‘n Robin ‘n nobody else played on it) their version of Song To The Siren took the Buckley blueprint, added some distinctive Cocteau’s swirling effect-laden guitar and topped it off with the weirdest, wonkiest and most crystal-clear vocals this teenager had ever heard. It took me about 14 years to like it, in all honesty. The cloth-eared fool that I am.
Ivo Watts-Russell, 4AD co-founder and brains behind the This Mortal Coil projects recalled the recording of Song To The Siren in a recent issue of Mojo.
I asked Liz if she’d sing Song To The Siren a cappella. Liz never went anywhere without Robin, so he came along. I couldn’t think what to do between the verses, so Robin, reluctantly, put on his guitar, found a sound, lent against a wall, bored as anything, and played it once. Three hours later, it was finished. I still tried to think of how to remove the guitar, but I couldn’t get away from that swimming atmosphere, which is a tribute to Robin’s genius.
Interestingly, Liz Fraser hated her vocal and Robin Guthrie is mightily peeved that no royalties have ever been forthcoming. In a flash of serendipity, Fraser would later go on to have a relationship with Buckley Jr, but that’s mere tittle-tattle and has no place in a family-friendly blog such as Plain Or Pan…
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Before he was releasing critic-unifying Albums of the Year, John Grant was the singer with The Czars. I’ve written about him before, in a told-you-so sort of piece, just before his Queen of Denmark LP stole everyone’s thunder in the music inkies round-up of what was hot and not last year. The Czars released half a dozen LPs to general indifference throughout the mid 90s and early 00s. I was a total fan. Possibly their only one. In another weird twist of serendipity, they were encouraged to magnetise their version of Song To The Siren by their A&R man, former Cocteau Simon Raymonde. Their’s is an almost 8-minute long blissed-out version, understated slide guitar, tinkling piano, gently beaten toms and John ‘s perfect vocals occupying the space left in the sky between Buckley’s soaring mood piece and Fraser’s cooing angel breath. Or something like that. I think you’ll like it…
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Tim Buckley‘s fabled Starsailor LP, anyone? Click the cover….
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Plain Or Pan 
Let it enfold ye.
Ha! Magic! I’d forgotten about that one!
I played football with Half Man Half Biscuit once. But that’s another story.