“Cities in Dust” by Siouxsie and the Banshees

"Cities in Dust" was the first taste of Tinderbox, out as a single in October 1985, months ahead of the album's 1986 arrival, and it's Siouxsie and the Banshees proving a gothic band could fill a dancefloor without cracking a smile. The song is about Pompeii: Mount Vesuvius blowing in 79 AD, the magma churning below, the fate of the people caught in it, and the digging, long afterwards, that brought the buried city back to light, right down to a household shrine to the Lares Familiares.

Siouxsie Sioux shares the composing credit with drummer Budgie and bassist Steven Severin, and the band produced and arranged it themselves, with Julian Standen engineering and Steve Churchyard mixing. Budgie's drums and percussion keep up a restless, tumbling rush, Severin works bass and keyboards, John Valentine Carruthers adds guitar and keys of his own, and Siouxsie rides the whole thing like a priestess reading the ashes.

It reached number 21 in the UK that November. In America, Geffen put it out early in 1986 with a Bob Rock remix, and it became the band's first real hit on Billboard's dance chart, climbing to number 17. Spin, for its part, cheered a commercial dance record that hadn't lost its edge.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.