Song · This Mortal Coil
“Song to the Siren” by This Mortal Coil
From the album It’ll End in Tears (1984)
“Song to the Siren” by This Mortal Coil appears on 9 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 1983 and 2024. It was first released in 1984 on the album It’ll End in Tears. Its best result is #4 on the John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1983. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #46 alternative song of 1983 and #2,492 alternative song of all time.
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This Mortal Coil's "Song to the Siren" anchors It'll End in Tears, the project's 1984 album, and it may be the most spellbinding stretch of the whole shadowy enterprise. The song belongs to Tim Buckley and Larry Beckett, but this reading makes it something else entirely: Elizabeth Fraser's voice drifts over a wash of Robin Guthrie's electric guitar, barely a pulse underneath, all reverb and yearning, like a signal picked up from the bottom of the sea.
Ivo Watts-Russell produced it with John Fryer, who also engineered, and they had the nerve to leave nearly everything out. Of all the covers that turned the song into one of Buckley's best-known works after his death, this is the one that did the most.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | 4 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1983 | 50 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | 15 | Triple J | Triple J Hottest 100 of All-Time (1989) | 100 |
| 1990 | 31 | Triple J | Triple J Hottest 100 of All-Time (1990) | 100 |
| 1991 | 637 | CFNY 102.1 The Edge | CFNY Top 1002 Songs of All-Time (1991 Edition) | 1002 |
| 1991 | 50 | Triple J | Triple J Hottest 100 of All-Time (1991) | 100 |
| 2000 | 10 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's All-Time Festive Fifty (2000) | 50 |
| 2022 | 385 | KEXP | KEXP Top Songs of the Last 50 Years (1972-2022) | 491 |
| 2023 | 690 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Songs of the 1980s | 850 |
| 2024 | 68 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Cover Songs | 850 |
Also listed as: Song To The Siren.
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