Artist · chart history
This Mortal Coil
Band United Kingdom Active 1983–1991
This Mortal Coil formed in 1983 in United Kingdom, United Kingdom and was active until 1991. This Mortal Coil has 14 chart appearances on 12 radio countdowns from 7 stations on RockLists, spanning 1983–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Song to the Siren”, which appears on 9 lists with a best position of #4. The station that charted This Mortal Coil most often is John Peel (BBC Radio 1), with 4 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1984.
This Mortal Coil were never really a band so much as a label boss's fever dream. Ivo Watts-Russell, who founded 4AD, put the project together in 1983 with John Fryer, and the two of them were the only official members. Everyone else was a guest, most of them from the 4AD roster: members of Cocteau Twins, Cindytalk, Dead Can Dance, Breathless, the Breeders and Belly all drifted in and out.
It'll End in Tears, in 1984, is where the spell was cast. Their version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" is the heart of it, a slow, glacial hymn of reverb and a lone, haunted voice that hangs in the air like mist, and it made a modest dent on the UK chart. "Kangaroo" and "Another Day" are just as spectral, gothic and dreamy and beautifully sad.
Filigree & Shadow followed in 1986 and Blood in 1991, with the hushed, lovely "You and Your Sister". After Blood, Watts-Russell closed the book on the project in 1991 and went on to form the Hope Blister, a group cut from much the same cloth.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by This Mortal Coil on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Song to the Siren | 9 | #4 | – | 1983 | |
| 2 | Kangaroo | 2 | #21 | – | 1984 | |
| 3 | You And Your Sister | 2 | #5 | – | 1991 | |
| 4 | Another Day | 1 | #33 | – | 1984 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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