Candyman Lyrics
SIOUXSIE: " 'Candyman’ was trying to put across the unspeakability of child abuse, and again, trying not to sensationalise it, just coming up with a very strong picture of a character that was sickly sweet and oozing repulsiveness. The amount of people who’ve been abused is incredible, and it’s only lately that the subject’s been brought out into the open. The whole thing’s such a power trip, and you realise the victims must have been so in fear of saying anything - cos they’ve been told by the perpetrator that they’ll go to hell or something. " Source: Melody Maker 17/10/92.
More than just that. Siouxsie herself was molested at 13.
I agree...a song about a child molester. For years I figured something had happened to Siouxsie because of all those dark lyrics she wrote. It was confirmed a few years ago after reading an interview.
She was molested by the man who owned the "sweet shop" in her part of the city. I can't even imagine such an experience.
About a child-molester.
oh my god! how horrible, i always knew this song was about a child molester, but i never thought it happened to her, bastard.
I wasn't aware of any of the child molestation stuff. That sounds terrible.
However, I've heard that the song was about Ronald Clark O'Bryan. He's the guy who poisoned his son with cyanide-laced Halloween candy to collect money from a life insurance policy in 1974. His actions are also a primary reason that parents are told to check Halloween candy for any signs of tampering after kids bring it home.
Dean Corll was born in 1939 into a contentious family; his parents divorced, remarried and divorced again while he was still a child. His mother remarried – to a new man, Jake West – when Dean was 16, and the whole family moved to Vidor, Texas, where Mrs. Corll and her second husband started “Pecan Prince,” a small candy company. [ . . .] With the help of Brooks, Dean Corll would lure young boys and men, mostly from the low-income neighborhood of Houston Heights, into his car with the promise of a party at his house. Once at Corll’s house, there was no escape. The young boys were supplied with drugs and alcohol, then strapped to a “torture board” that was two-and-a-half feet wide and eight-feet long. The victims were forced to endure unspeakable horrors, as Corll would rape, torture, and eventually murder the youngsters by strangulation or gunshot. Corll buried the many bodies in four separate locations.
from: https://didyouknowfacts.com/candy-man-dean-corll-houston-murders/