“Happy House” by Siouxsie and the Banshees

"Happy House" was the sound of Siouxsie and the Banshees reborn: a March 1980 single on Polydor that later took its place on their third album, Kaleidoscope, and the first thing they cut with drummer Budgie, fresh from the Slits, and guitarist John McGeoch, who hadn't even left Magazine yet. Siouxsie Sioux wrote the words and the music with Steven Severin, and the band produced it with Nigel Gray.

The newcomers tilted everything. Budgie, hooked on African polyrhythms, slipped a reggae lilt under the beat, and McGeoch's guitar swings between shimmering fog and razor wire; Siouxsie called it the band's phase two. The happiness is a con. She has said the song is sarcastic, a jab at the picture-perfect family sold by television and adverts, when what goes on behind a lot of front doors is violence.

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