Lyric discussion by NomadMonad 

Cover art for Silver Waterfalls lyrics by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Where to begin...

I listened to this song [the whole Superstition album] in the Arizona desert near Chevelon Canyon where I lived in 95'. I always made a personal association with title of the album and the Superstition mountains of Arizona. I was caretaking on some land for a friend and would go for 1 to 2 weeks without seeing another human being - only the Piñon pines, coyotes, clouds, birds and a view of the painted Desert on the Northern horizon from my front step. The distant spires and buttes were amazing to see in the dawn and twilight. There was a Mogollón burial right near my camp - I found arrowheads, broken metates (grinding stones) and even some beads. On Easter morning my friend who was visiting found a perfectly flaked flint spearhead in a dry stream bed - still razor sharp.

I cannot describe the epiphanies I experienced while walking among the canyon cliffs, beside the flowing creek lined with cottonwood trees, past petroglyphs and rock art and even exploring burial caves and pit-house ruins covered with fragments of Black-on-white Mogollón pottery. It was a magical time.

This lovely and mysterious song catalyzed it all for me in a way that words can never express. I am only able to approximate a fraction of the transcendence I was experiencing. There were dried riverbeds I was walking in and I could see where the waterfalls had carved out the sandy basins during past storms. All through this time, the lyrics of this song took on greater and greater intensity. It was very beautiful - frighteningly so. I want to thank Siouxsie for writing and singing this tune.

"in your eyes in the skies in the blood burning indian sunrise shimmer on me (in sleep we grow)

we were here long ago and now we roam like ghostly buffalo..."

The other song that was propelling me into epiphanies during my desert days was "Amazona" by Roxy music. But that's another tale. As George Harrison once said: It's All Too Much"