“I don’t want to do anything else and I don’t want to retire,” Andrew Eldritch told Louder in 2021. True to his word, The Sisters of Mercy have played nearly 200 gigs since then – in Europe, the Americas and Australasia. They already have more booked for 2025: Bearded Theory in the English Midlands, a sprint through France, Spain and Germany, and their habitual residency at the Roundhouse in London.
The Sisters of Mercy’s ‘late period’ rolls on… But right now, Eldritch is taking a breather, the longest since the pandemic-enforced shutdowns. While Eldritch has his feet up, we asked collaborators, fellow travellers, band members, and musicians inspired by The Sisters (and The Sisterhood, Eldritch’s infamous 1986 side-project) to choose their favourite song from Andrew Eldritch’s 40-plus years of making music.
These tracks date from the very birth of the band all the way to the torrent of excellent unrecorded and, as yet, unreleased new material from 2019-on. In live performances this album manqué comprises half of The Sisters of Mercy’s set, going toe-to-toe with actual hits, such as Temple of Love, Lucretia, This Corrosion Dominion and Alice. Remarkably, for a band in its fifth decade, it is equal to its three classic predecessors, First and Last and Always, Floodland and Vision Thing.
So, without further ado – and in no particular order – here are The Sisters of Mercy’s greatest songs, according to some of the people who know them best.
Floorshow
Chosen by: Gary Marx (founder member and Sisters guitarist 1980-85)
"In my experience bands are such odd entities – to the outside world they tend to look fairly straightforward, with a clear dynamic and power structure in place. In the Sisters’ case, Andrew sits aloft. He wrote the best songs, was the face, the voice (in both senses), the artwork’s his, and on and on … what’s left for the rest of us!?
"I don’t know how clearly I need to say it, but The Sisters would have been nothing without Craig. That’s why it has to be Floorshow for me: C.D. Adams – let’s put him slap bang in the middle of things where he belongs. Floorshow was his great opening gambit – the riff that sealed the deal inside two minutes of him ripping into it in our first rehearsal together. Fuzz bass heaven.
Andrew and I got to pile our own two penn’orth on top, but it’s that monstrous, rumbling, bone-crushing riff that it distils down to. I love the recorded version we did at KG in Bridlington with Kenny Giles and John Ashton (of the Psychedelic Furs). It’s a better representation of the band’s combined strengths than ‘Alice’. Andrew could have made that record on his own – Floorshow is a different beast. It has that great belligerent, unbridled quality that we all so loved about The Stooges and the MC5. It’s a vital record."
Vision Thing
Chosen by Tim Bricheno (All About Eve, Sisters guitarist, 1990-92)
"I always liked playing Vision Thing live, it’s just a killer song – great riff and lyric. I liked playing Ribbons too. Both songs seem to contain that delicious Sisters feeling that I can’t properly explain.
There was a point in Vision Thing live where Andrew sings “one million points of light” and our lighting man used to mark that with what looked like a million points of light on the audience. I loved that moment – you had to be on stage to see it whole. That may seem like a small thing to remember and look forward to, but usually all stage lighting is lost from a band perspective. You just feel various degrees of hotness when you’re on stage under the lights.
"It always felt like that magic lighting moment was for us as much as the crowd."
Lucretia My Reflection
Chosen by: Michael McKeegan (Therapy?, support band on the 2017 tour)
"The Sisters Of Mercy were one of the few bands, like Motörhead, that could unite all the ‘alternative’ music cultures in 80s Northern Ireland. At that time the punk, metal and indie scenes were all small and interlinked so there was always a fair bit of overlap in musical tastes and exposure to different bands.
"I first them heard as a teenage metalhead from friends who’d been raving about their recently released Floodland album. It initially seemed quite a bit away from my frame of reference but I was intrigued by the sound, the attitude and the sheer otherworldliness of it all.
"Lucretia My Reflection soon became a huge favourite of 16-year-old me: driving beats, THAT bassline, crunchy guitars, big hooks plus bombastic in all the right ways too. A band seemingly full of contradictions yet which still fitted so well together sonically and visually, a pure one-off and one of the main reasons I still love them today.
"Therapy? have had the pleasure of playing with the band quite a few times and they are brilliant people to be around, always great to hang out with and hear a few battle stories … of which there are quite a few!"
Kiss The Carpet
Chosen by: Chris Catalyst (guitarist 2005-2019 and Nurse to The Doktor 2023-)
"The first time I heard this song was a few years before I joined up with Andrew. I had gatecrashed a party in Leeds 6 and opened a door to find a bunch of whey-faced gurning speedfreaks swaying in a circle with a bunch of candles on the go, and this was the soundtrack. I had no idea what it was at the time.
"Of course, like everything Sisters-related - or Andrew Eldritch-related - there’s a lot more to Kiss than the initial throb, which, to the untrained ear, might sound like a seventies glam stomper being played at 33.3 rpm rather than 45. There’s a sneering archness to the lyric, which, as is so often the case, is more likely to obfuscate than inform.
"The melodrama of the delivery and the cliched rawk n’ drawl of ‘YEAH!’ masks a sexually-cum-amphetaminally-charged series of double entendre. Even though it’s probably about Thatcher or something.
"Actually, that doesn’t bear thinking about.
"But for me, it’s that fuzzed-up and blissed-out looping spiral of a riff that I could listen to all night. And having been privy to a few stories about their all-excess approach in the studio, I am pretty sure that’s exactly what went on when they recorded it.
"Best of all, it’s underpinned by Doktor Avalanche twisting and turning in his own whizz-addled stupor. For a slow song, the programming is so busy and frenetic but at the same time so coherent. The sound of it on the later iteration of The Good Dok is thunderous – monstrous even. I wish we played it more often, to be honest.
"Kiss The Carpet is the sound of a Mach 10 hangover before it’s happened. This is your brain on 27 hours of no sleep in the early hours of the morning… Or possibly even the afternoon.
"'And I said… YEAH!'"
Marian
Chosen by: Andreas Bruhn, (Sisters guitarist 1989-93)
"When I was 17 there was this eye-catching bunch of guys in my hometown of Norderstedt, all dressed in black and spending hours on their hair. They showed me The Cure, Joy Division, Siouxsie and this new band from England fronted by the coolest person in the universe. I was in my Bowie/Gary Numan phase. The singer sounded a bit like them.
"When the First and Last and Always album came out, I took the train into Hamburg and, with my white hair pointing to the sky, got a copy from Michelle, the record shop where the cool people bought their vinyl. Great artwork and finally some photos.
"But the album wasn’t exactly like expected. It didn’t catch me as much as their earlier high-energy stompers, apart from the title track, Some Kind of Stranger and The Sisters’ ‘Heroes’ moment: Marian. That was the album’s reason for living. What a classic! Everything seemed perfect on that song. We just couldn’t get enough of it. But it got even better: Someone heard that the woman Andrew was singing about came from Hamburg!
"Only a few years later, in 1990, I was preparing the songs for the first Sisters tour in five years. Marian was obviously one of the first ones I rehearsed, but it never had the same intensity or impact live as the album version. Those vocals are very quiet and intimate, which is great on the studio version but on a massive stage where you can hardly hear yourself, screaming fans in front, guitarwankers left and right, you have to concentrate so hard. It just wasn’t fun (for Andrew).
"We couldn’t supply Wayne Hussey’s and Andrew’s fantastic composition with the ingredients it deserved, so no-one was really upset when we dropped it from the setlist.
"On tour I got asked by so many girls what the German verse meant and being a true gentlemen I translated word for word. It basically said that if you go to bed with a German you wake up a better person!"
Sandstorm/Dominion/Mother Russia
Chosen by: Duncan Kilburn (ex-Psychedelic Furs and guest saxophonist with The Sisters, 2023)
"I first heard Floodland in 1987 when Howard Thompson, then Head of Elektra A&R in NYC, visited me at my apartment in Hong Kong. He brought gifts including a collection of CDs, among them ones by Happy Mondays, 10,000 Maniacs and The Sisters of Mercy’s new album. They all had a hole drilled neatly in the spine indicating that they were promotional copies, and I wasn’t to resell them.
"Howard and I shared a connection with Andrew Eldritch going back to Friday 29th July 1981 at a soundcheck for a Psychedelic Furs show at Huddersfield Polytechnic. Andrew had given me a very early Sisters demo and I had liked it and passed it on to Howard, which had led to him signing them to Elektra in the US.
"Years later, in 2022, I wanted to repay the honour of Andrew Eldritch’s presence at our soundcheck by attending his with a later manifestation of The Sisters at The Gov in Adelaide, my local venue. However, the band were late and I couldn’t wait for them.
"Nevertheless, this led to the idea of a live guest appearance with them. Dominion/Mother Russia was an obvious choice as it is the only song in their set featuring saxophone – my instrument – on the recorded version. I added Sandstorm as an intro. On record, this is sax tracks from Dominionplayed backwards. When combined with a video of Andrew and Patricia Morrison against a desert backdrop, the illusion of colonial decadence is complete.
"My son Joshua Kilburn, bass player with Adelaide band The Hydes, produced a backing track for Sandstorm and I tried to write a piece as close to 2 minutes of reverse sax as I could. It was close for the first half but then it drops into what was described in Louder as 'part skronk and part Middle Eastern melody occupying a rarely explored space between The Last Post, Tara by Roxy Music and free jazz improv.'
"The solo in Dominion is challenging as it was originally played on an alto and the top note is outside my tenor range. But there is a great refrain in the chorus reminiscent, as Andrew pointed out to me, of the foghorn of the Queen Mary."
Adrenochrome
Chosen by: Tom Ashton (The March Violets and Sisters guitarist, 1981)
"The Violets have not long played The Brudenell, literally 400 yards from the shabby Autumn Street back-to-back which was my first Leeds abode. Andrew and Claire Shearsby lived up the hill in a bed-sit on St John's Terrace and that's where The Sisters rehearsed and where I first played this song.
"It was a slinky number and a lot of fun to play, embodying the sly sense of purpose that the band had back then, plus a certain scuzz rock memorability that still sounds original to this day. I had to sneak out early from a seminar at Jacob Kramer art college in Leeds to go and soundcheck, which raised a tutor's frown but hey, rock'n'roll!
"The gig itself was a blast and also the first time I'd played in a band with two guitarists, Gary Marx being the other one, of course. Maybe fifty people were in the Tartan Bar in the Student Union of Leeds University to witness my one and only gig with The Sisters. Good times!"
Black Planet
Chosen by: Kai (Esprit D’Air and Sisters guitarist 2023-)
"This has always held a special place in my heart, simply for being the opening track from the first album I grew to love. From the moment the first couple of chords in the intro hit, there's an unmistakable sense of foreboding. It’s a track that perfectly marries Andrew Eldritch's evocative lyrics with a soundscape that is both raw and expansive, offering plenty of room for the sparkly guitars to shine.
"And I love that ‘spidery’ riff! It's the minor 6th interval in the riff that specifically gives it that cool, hypnotic sound. The song still encapsulates the existential dread of the modern world, almost 40 years after it came out. It paints a bleak picture of a world on the brink of collapse—a 'black planet' that is both a physical and metaphorical place. It's a world where the sky is darkened by pollution and despair, a place where the hope for a better future seems increasingly distant.
"While Black Planet holds a special place, I also want to give a nod to one of the band’s newer songs, But Genevieve. It's become one of my favourites. I had the privilege of contributing an accompanying guitar line to the already wonderful song. It was something I worked out while we were on tour, which I later brought to soundcheck. I aimed to create something that felt unmistakably 'Sisters'—a simple minor arpeggio that's melodic, and atmospheric - ensuring it added depth without overshadowing the haunting quality of the track.
"It's really cool to see how But Genevieve resonates with both new and old fans alike when we play it live."
Fix
Chosen by: Andrew Liles (musician and producer who has often covered The Sisters, including an instrumental version of First and Last and Always, and a 30-minute version of ‘This Corrosion’)
"Without The Sisters I probably wouldn’t have started making music. I have subtly or explicitly paraphrased, referenced, alluded to and paid homage to them throughout many of my recordings.
"The wit and the wisdom of the lyrics, those razor sharp guitars and that motorik drum machine: there was, and is, no one quite like them. A glorious anomaly of a rock band shrouded in fog, fronted by an intellectual enigma: what’s not to like?
"The Reptile House EP is one of my all-time favourite records. It could be argued that, in some respects, it is an almost experimental recording. Crawling, meticulous, with backwards recordings and vocals recorded at different speeds, it is absolutely magnificent in every way.
"Fix is the jewel in the crown of the EP, a slow-paced behemoth that doesn’t take any prisoners. It has a perfect economy of notes and words placed on a backdrop of reverberating drums with Eldritch faking a female backing singer. Its faultless, clinical mix is as cold as the tiles in a 1980s public toilet and so clean that you can almost smell the acrid urinal cakes.
"Its lyrics, full of allusions and open to multiple interpretations, are a flawless distillation of British society in 1983. Alienation, polarisation, Thatcherism, the emergence of corporate monopolies, the wholesale sell-off of the UK whilst everyone blindly and obliviously waved little flags with national pride at the royal wedding. It’s a timeless critique of England that is equally, yet sadly, as relevant today as it was 41 years ago.
"Fix is the quintessential embodiment of everything that is special about The Sisters. Uncompromising, original, sardonic and wilfully idiosyncratic. On top of that, for a clumsy bassist such as myself, it’s satisfyingly easy to play."
Afterhours
Chosen by: Lisa Cuthbert (singer-songwriter, sound designer and producer; Sisters backing vocalist 2012-17)
"The first time I played with The Sisters was the Amphi Festival in Cologne in 2012. Andrew had found my version of This Corrosion online and contacted me a couple of weeks before Amphi proposing his idea that I perform it as part of their set. It was quite surreal, I thought it was a joke at first! I think they were just trying out some ideas.
"I also sang backing vocals on other songs like Temple of Love and Dominion/Mother Russia and played a few other shows with them. I would have loved to play more, but my health wasn’t good at the time so it didn’t work out. I also recorded backing vocals for Arms but it was never released.
"Afterhours is one of my favourite tracks of theirs. The lyrics paint this heavy, almost suffocating late-night scene in New York City, laden with gloom and detachment. The pulsing throughout is like a panic attack coming on. You can hear the cars going by, and feel the slow, heavy breaths as time seems to lose all meaning.
"There's something incredibly haunting and intimate about the vocal delivery, like it's reaching into those hidden corners of memory and emotion. For me, it takes me back to my days in Berlin – the hot, heavy summers, late nights, and the feeling of utter loneliness and detachment.
"I find the change of tone on the word 'angel' interesting. At first, I thought it was cynicism I detected, but the more I think about it, the more I think it could also be sorrowful or mournful. This song has death written all over it. 'Black Mariah in your eyes.'”
Eyes of Caligula
Chosen by: Ben Christo (Diamond Black and Sisters guitarist 2005-)
"Of the works I have co-written with Andrew and Dylan Smith, Eyes of Caligula is possibly my proudest moment. Andrew had kept the title – and possibly some of the lyric – in the chamber for many years, its interrogation of Thatcher’s Britain being a subject close to his heart. So to have been part of the team that finally put music to this is extremely meaningful to me.
"My share of the composition was done during lockdown, against a backdrop of portent and uncertainty - perhaps mirroring aspects of the Thatcherite era – and I feel this atmosphere substantially informed the melodies and arrangements.
"When I approached the lead piano/guitar melody, my goal was something memorable, direct and with a sense of both gravitas and lament. I’d always greatly admired the unassailable, majestic quality of the Dominion riff, so I took this as my reference point, hoping to achieve something along those lines.
"I feel we achieved something special – it’s musically expansive and yet succinct, clocking in at under 4 minutes. I’ve often experienced strong emotions when performing this live, at M’era Luna in 2022 being a standout. Foot on the monitor, playing the 4-note solo as the sun set, is a snapshot that will stay with me!
"Although too young to really recall the political climate of nature of the 80s, Andrew’s words are so evocative that I often get chills when we sing them. 'We had wool and we had steel / we had Liverpool / not ever much your England' is strikingly specific; while 'she do mascara fail' and 'crippled all in scented lace' are hauntingly oblique (out of context).
"We aimed for something rebellious yet reflective, with both fist-raising grandeur and nostalgic lament, and I feel proud of the outcome.
"Check out Viktoriya Yermolyeva’s stunning piano arrangement on YouTube. I find it breathtaking – and I feel honoured to have inspired someone so talented."
I Was Wrong
Chosen by: Mark Freegard (recording engineer on Vision Thing)
"I worked on Vision Thing with Andrew for around six months at Puk Studios in Denmark in 1990. I was flown in to record guitars initially for around 3 weeks, but this turned into months, as it was clear Andrew was in the process of writing the songs in the studio. We were in the middle of northern Denmark, a few miles from the nearest town - surrounded by rather flat brown fields (that became lush and green by the time I left!) so it felt like being on the moon.
"I was recently divorced and didn’t really have a solid home base, so was happy to set up camp at the luxuriant Puk studios with its massive control rooms and acres of glass. Andrew told me he sought me out for my guitar sounds. For some songs we also worked extensively on sizeable multitracked vocal recordings developing that SOM signature vocal sound, a process of multitrack editing between two enormous 32-track digital tape recording machines – state of the art at the time. Andrew’s commitment to getting what he wanted was and probably still is - uncompromising.
"Andrew was a bit of night owl. He’d frequently ask to record vocals through the dark hours. For I Was Wrong, he asked to be set up on a high stool with the mic position being 'Frank Sinatra' ie - hung from above. We agreed to wear suitable attire - so suits and ties. I might have combed my hair – I had some then.
"A couple of lines in the song remind me that when I first arrived at Puk. We had a bonding drinking session that involved draining a bottle of deep frozen Russian vodka. In the morning I ended up on the floor of my bathroom in some pain – and unable to drink vodka for at least a decade."
Jihad
Chosen by: Kevin Lycett (Mekons ’77, Leeds post-punk legend)
"I’ve known Andy since before he was Eldritch, back in the fervid days of the late 70s when we knew something was happening and we all wanted part of it. We just didn’t know what roles we were all going to play. So then I became part of the chaotic Mekons and then Andy got to be Eldritch and hyper-control came about.
"We all tumbled in and out of each other's musical lives back then – it was all kind of a fuzzy extension of our normal lives. Lager ‘n’ speed and endless games of pool in The Fav (the Faversham Hotel in Leeds) morphed into back of the van trips to this gig or that. Helping each other out recording demos. I think it was with Andy that I spent an entire night trying to get the perfect kick drum sound for one of his early records. Something changed in me forever that night. Mostly deciding to never, ever do that again. He made no such decision.
"Much like heavy metal or reggae, all Sisters songs sound the same to me, So while I adore the über-song of The Sisters, I’m a bit at sea when it comes to individual tracks. My favourite is probably one of his acerbic, 'venge songs about that scallywag Wayne’s shenanigans. Those numbers have a towering intensity that’s a rare thing indeed. And they’re so camp.
"Jihad does stand out: utter relentless minimalism with all the malice of a steam roller driven by a psychopath. Still makes me laugh. That song is exquisite in its pettiness. I sometimes think Andy’s true inspiration was actually Quentin Crisp."
This Corrosion
Chosen by: Ally Dickaty and Danny Dolan of The Virginmarys (support act 2023-24)
"Vision Thing was certainly a big favourite for us while driving about in the van round Europe on tour with The Sisters. And More was Danny’s all-time favourite Sisters track before we even got asked to support.
"However, we’ve chosen This Corrosion because it showcases The Sisters’ ability to write an anthemic, world-beating chorus that will be stuck in your head forever - and because we were invited up on stage to sing the chorus of this track at Glasgow Barrowlands last year. It was one of the proudest moments of our band’s career. The Sisters all wore Virginmarys T-shirts and we wore Sisters tour T-shirts (while wearing shades on stage of course.) Danny got asked to man The Doktor (Doktor Avalanche, The Sisters’ drum machine/backing computers) and start the track off, which was the most surreal moment in his life.
"Von (Andrew Eldritch) has cemented himself rightly into legend status. His unique writing, together with his performing style and the way he commands the audience is something very special. Watching their set every night you realise just how many great songs the band have. He absolutely could not have been better to us on tour that’s for sure. He personally made sure we always broke even on our gigs.
"The Sisters had the sax player from the Psychedelic Furs for the last three shows of the tour, which was awesome. Andrew said it was because it was The Furs (in particular the sax player) that gave The Sisters their first break when they offered them a support tour. He credits them specifically for making The Sisters what they became. Von is an incredible guy – I don’t think we’ll meet anyone like him again. We felt like we came away from that tour learning a hell of lot, not just from Andrew but from the rest of the guys too."
Giving Ground 7” version/Giving Ground 12” version
Chosen by: Lucas Fox (ex-Motörhead; vocalist on The Sisterhood’s Gift album)
"I first met Andrew Eldritch at the offices of Troubadour, a tour services company in Notting Hill Gate. The Sisters Of Mercy’s management rented an office from them. Andrew had me build the furniture and decorate it – matte black, top to toe! Andrew knew that I’d been producing bands for a few years, so when The Sisters split acrimoniously, he had Boyd Steemson, who was running the Black Office, ask me to produce Giving Ground. This was to pip Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams to the post by using the name The Sisterhood.
"I was supplied with two quarter inch reel-to-reel instrumental demo tapes, a set of lyrics that Boyd had written and James Ray (who was signed to Merciful Release) to croon the vocal. I booked a couple of days in a studio in Crystal Palace I had used to produce Civilisation Machine the same day as Live Aid the previous summer.
"I had the engineer splice together an arrangement I concocted and set up some serious reverb and delays action for James’ vocals. On returning to the office, with the Ampex 2-inch multi-track tape under my arm and the mix on my Sony Professional quartz-locked cassette player, I discovered Andrew fresh back from Germany sitting on the beaten-up beige couch in Troubadour’s main office. He donned my headphones and became transfixed, listening to the track over and over for well over an hour.
"A few weeks later, Boyd explained that Andrew wanted me to go up by train from King’s Cross straight away to join him at Fairview studios in Hull to make a new version of Giving Ground. I brought coloured chinagraph pencils, a copy of the multi-track and a box of editing razor blades to cut the tape. I used a fresh razor blade for every cut, chinagraph labelled each segment of 2-inch tape and masking taped them around the walls of the control room. Andrew and I then arranged the song.
"We fired up Doktor Avalanche to overdub some fills and different snare sounds to broaden the dynamic. Andrew set up noise-gates and compressors and tweaked the delays and reverbs and added some Alan Vega cries he’d recorded when they had met up together in the dressing room of Leeds university. I then dug out a recording of a massive storm I had recently made in Cannes when I was the technical director of Midem. I put in a snippet of this tornado which had ripped through La Croisette uprooting and flattening many of the lovely palm trees. Then more Alan Vega wimpers and cries spaced out overhead like human seagulls. This lengthy oeuvre took its final shape. ‘Well moody, well ‘ard,' as Andrew said."
Train
Chosen by: Jez Willis (Utah Saints)
"The Sisters are a super important band for me, the first band I saw when I arrived in Leeds, when they supported The Psychedelic Furs at the University. Didn’t quite get them at that gig, but saw them at The Warehouse a few months later after hearing them on John Peel. And that was it – big fan ever since. The fact that they are a Leeds band like us is a bonus.
"I’ve probably seen them twenty times since. Great songs, complete enigma on stage, and complicated in interviews, Andrew always made me think. I rediscovered my love of Motörhead and Suicide through The Sisters. They also influenced the Utah Saints’ stage – backlit, loads of smoke.
"Train is a special track for me, especially the line (simple as it is): 'Everybody got a destination/Everybody got a place to go.' I’ve kept that as a metaphor for trying to understand people – and it’s helped!
"So when the opportunity came up for Andrew to sing a couple of songs live with us, we all knew we had to take it. The gig was 1993 in Leeds: all local bands raising money for Shelter (the housing and homelessness charity). We were on last after Ringo’s High, La Costa Rasa, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Cud and The Mission.
"The audience looked like there were a lot of Sisters fans in it, which was a bit intimidating for us, but Andrew was our secret weapon. When we came on, the first ten rows of the 1,200 there all started chanting 'Eldritch! Eldritch!' I had to take that head on and tell them that they should be chanting Utah!” Luckily we were loud and had a lot of smoke, so it all worked.
"We hadn’t rehearsed at all with Andrew. We’d arranged it for the day before, but somehow I’d forgotten we were supporting U2 at Wembley stadium that day, something Andrew teased me about in a subsequent interview!
"As you would expect, Andrew was the consummate pro; he even crouched for the whole of New Gold Dream. When I asked him why, his reply was, 'That’s what Jim Kerr does.'”
Here
Chosen by: Dylan Smith (Sisters guitarist 2019-23)
"This is one of the newer Sisters songs that I am proud we managed to achieve during my time in the band. We were doing a lot of remote writing and the music, the whole thing in fact, took maybe an hour; sometimes a song writes itself.
"I wanted to achieve a huge, anthem-like quality. I was always attracted to the big bombastic Sisters numbers – Dominion, Corrosion, Under The Gun, as much as Alice and Lucretia. The solo in Here is pure Gilmour – melody, choice and restraint. I’ve always preferred vocal-style lead work. I was also leaning more towards acoustic-based tracks at the time, Black Sail being another example. Once we got into the rehearsal room, Andrew came up with the line 'We are here' and the rest is history.
"We always thought Here was a strong song – we wrote so many during that period but sometimes you just know. Partly I think the reason Ben (Christo) and I were so productive songwriting together, apart from our shared musical history – Ben played live guitar and did BV’s in my band i nation when I lived in London – is because we were, and still are, both fans of the band. We cared about the legacy and fans and heritage and understood the older material so well, it wasn’t difficult to add our stamp when writing new material.
"Special mention to Ravey Davey (Dave Creffield, Nurse to the Doktor 2012-2023) for pushing me to bring back the 12-string on a lot of arrangements during that period. It was always such a classic element of the band’s sound that we felt had been missing for some time. Here was always definitely a live highlight for me in the set. It would be great to see a recorded version one day to do the song justice."
Ribbons
Chosen by: John Robb (The Membranes, Sisters support band 2016 and author of The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth)
"In his music writing days, a former UK prime minister once described The Sisters of Mercy as 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.' Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe Winston Churchill was referring to the USSR, but it's as close as anyone else has got to capturing the band.
"Peering into this vortex and choosing a favourite track by such a shape-shifting band is a vision of hell: it could be one of their early minimalistic masterpieces – I could even fall in love with The Damage Done over and over again – or the still-shuddering Floorshow. I could even embrace one of the great new songs they tease us with in their sets – like Here – that shimmer in the ether before disappearing into the cosmos, but I am plumping for Ribbons off their often overlooked last album Vision Thing.
"Its dark, descending guitar line makes up for the lack of grinding bass brilliance, and the song's futuristic noir and nihilistic voyeurisism and sci-fi skyline riffing are entrancing musically and lyrically."
Alice
Chosen by: Claire Shearsby (legendary Leeds DJ and early Sisters sound engineer)
"Not very obscure I’m afraid, but I’ve got my DJ head on! This is what I would play down The Phono (Le Phonographique) if a Sisters track was requested. I just love it. One of those tracks that never grows old. The way it motors along, winding round and round, it has a great pace for dancing; very on the beat, very English.
"I remember The Sisters and John Ashton (guitarist of the Psychedelic Furs) recording a demo version of Alice during the night in Village Place, the house Andrew, Mark (Gary Marx) and I shared in Leeds. There was a cellar for band practice but on his occasion the living room was taken over. The next day the neighbours wanted to know what 'that carry-on' was all about!
"This Corrosion is another floor-filler. I remember waiting for ages for the first Sisters release after the split. I thought Corrosion was a triumph – fantastically OTT and brilliant! I took the record to The Warehouse in Leeds, as it was Friday – ‘our’ night - when I got a copy. Lots of people danced. It sounded great down there. Happy days…"
Some Kind of Stranger
Chosen by: David M Allen (producer of First and Last and Always)
"Opening with skirling sine waves from hell, the lick of a lifted Little Wing riff, a descending bass run and then Dr Avalanche’s entry: boom!
"The lyrics to Some Kind of Stranger start with 'And', as if there was more before. There was. The first verse that preceded was culled from the multitrack because Eldritch didn’t want his girlfriend to hear it. So that’s all the subtext of ‘I know we’ve had good times but…', the attempt to explain, then realizing that words are not enough. And then the naked, lonely need. Words that will haunt anyone who’s met another while away from their other.
“'Come here, I think you’re beautiful / My door is open wide / Some kind of angel, come inside'. Eldritch is such a romantic, dealing with his vulnerabilities while acting all hard-nosed, his massive crystalline mirrorball ego shimmering through a hollow baritone over bombastic bathos. The essence of masculine weakness as art.
"And more…The lifting bridge to chorus with Gary Marx’s twisty mastery. The chiming harmonic guitar-line twinned with strings from the Korg synthesizer. (Slow songs always need strings and bells.) The missing bass drum of verse 3. Our day and night recording the singing of the verses with all the lights way down low. The day and night spent recording the vocal outro. The slip to the high voice. Intense hours from midnight to dawnbreak. The superloud playback in the blackout with just a soundboard on fire with isopropyl-alcohol, plasma meters and twin oscilloscopes like eyes drawing the sound. A son et lumière to close the session.
"A song to end a record. With an eye to the Marians in the crowd."
Mark Andrews is the author of ‘Paint My Name in Black and Gold’, the definitive account of the early years of The Sisters of Mercy and the forthcoming, ‘Here’, the story of The Sisters of Mercy’s long-awaited fourth album, a record yet to be made.
