Album · This Mortal Coil
It’ll End in Tears by This Mortal Coil
It’ll End in Tears is an album by This Mortal Coil, released in 1984. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 12 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Song to the Siren”, on 9 lists with a best position of #4.
It'll End in Tears, the first album by This Mortal Coil, came out on 4AD on 1 October 1984, and it's less a band than a label boss's dream project. Ivo Watts-Russell gathered his roster into the studio with John Fryer producing: Elizabeth Fraser and Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins, Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, Martyn Young of Colourbox and the singer from Cindytalk.
Side one is mostly covers Watts-Russell picked himself, including two from Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers, Kangaroo and Holocaust, plus Fraser's ghostly reading of Roy Harper's Another Day. Side two turns to originals by Raymonde and Gerrard. The centerpiece is Fraser singing Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren, an eerie, weightless thing that was released ahead of the album and, to everyone's surprise, took off on the UK independent charts. It's gothic, glacial and gorgeous, and it earned a cult standing the two later albums never quite matched.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from It’ll End in Tears on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Song to the Siren | 9 | #4 | – | 1983–2024 | |
| 2 | Kangaroo | 2 | #21 | – | 1984–2024 | |
| 3 | Another Day | 1 | #33 | – | 1984 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.