Siouxsie and the Banshees

Premature Burial

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Premature Burial Lyrics

This catacomb compels me
Corroding and inert
It weights and tries to pull me
Must I resist or re-assert?

The unchanged and the unchangeable
Doing the zombierama
Singing Oh come and be like me,
We're all sisters and brothers

Ejected to this state of being
Don't bury me with this
I'm in a state of catalepsy
Can I really exist?

Clawing from the inside
Drowning in your chant
Thoughts come flooding through me
Despairing unity

The unchanged and the unchangeable
Doing the zombierama
Singing Oh come and be like me,
We're all sisters and brothers

Red and white carnations
Can't intoxicate my brain
This blissful suffocation
It is driving me to pain
Oh what a bloody shame

The unchanged and the unchangeable
Doing the zombierama
Singing Oh come and be like me,
We're all sisters and brothers

I'm not your sister
Or your brother
Don't bury me with this
Join hands-join hands
We're all sisters and brothers
Sisters and brothers
I can't relate to you
You're no relation of mine

Submitted by

kaitou On May 19, 2002

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Kaitou

Submitter

2002-05-19 02:47:47

4 Meanings

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by Suzarella

21y ago

Written after reading a lot of Edgar Allen Poe

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by katherowen

21y ago

Yes, there's a short story by Edgar Allan Poe of the same title. Being buried alive is a motif frequently found in Poe's stories, which seems to represent the powerlessness and misery of an internal struggle. In Poe's case, this struggle was depression and alcoholism.

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by JJKelsall

13y ago

Severin claimed Edgar Allan Poe (on whose short story the song is based) was a sort of Gothic comedian and Siouxsie said the single line ‘Oh what a bloody shame’ was there to make the doominess of it all feel silly... and yet they came back to discussing the song in terms of the weighty theme of social claustrophobia (the ‘burial’ image equals limiting factors like race or youth fashion cults). Source: Sounds 29/09/79.

Interesting idea about being enclosed and buried by the constrictions and prejudices of society.

Song Meaning

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by dgkfhjlffjfjhlfhja

13y ago

poe may be the inspiration, but i think it's clearly about organized religion.

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by dgkfhjlffjfjhlfhja 13y ago

...and hippies.

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