Skinheads in the Hong Kong Garden

On this day 40 years ago, Siouxsie and the Banshees released their debut single, ‘Hong Kong Garden’. In a 2005 interview with Uncut magazine, Siouxsie had this to say about the song::

“I’ll never forget, there was a Chinese restaurant in Chislehurst called the ‘Hong Kong Garden’. Me and my friend were really upset that we used to go there and like, occasionally when the skinheads would turn up it would really turn really ugly. These gits would just go in en masse and just terrorise these Chinese people who were working there. We’d try and say ‘Leave them alone’, you know. It was a kind of tribute”.

That’s very noble of you, Siouxsie. But let’s take a look at the lyrics, shall we?

Harmful elements in the air…
Junk floats on polluted water
An old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number twenty three?
Leave your yens on the counter please…
Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
A race of bodies small in size

Hold on, Siouxsie – it almost sounds like the ‘harmful element’ here isn’t racist skinheads, but a “race of bodies small in size” who “sell their daughters”…

Come to think of it, don’t some of your other songs express similar sentiments? Let’s have a listen to ‘Arabian Knights’:

Veiled behind screens
Kept as your baby machine
Whilst you conquer more orifices
Of boys, goats and things

That’s right, Siouxsie says that Arabs are kiddie fiddlers and goatfuckers. Maybe that’s just her skinhead-defying ‘tribute’ to the Middle East, though… Need we even bring up the original version of ‘Love in a Void’ with its subversive line, “too many Jews for my liking”? Probably not.

Needless to say, no skinhead band would get away with lyrics like these. But Siouxsie is a respected punk artiste, which is why liberal papers lap up her mealy-mouthed explanations wholesale. The Independent, for example, genuinely believes that Siouxsie “turned her anger [about racism] into song”.

As late as 1991, Siouxsie still felt free to recall how she “worked in pubs and clubs in the West End: the Valbonne. At night it was disgusting, full of Arabs”.

But by the new century, it was time for some historical revisionism. How convenient for Siouxsie to have shaven-headed yobboes to point her finger at!

Plot twist: despite all of the above, I really like Siouxsie’s music. Even her early work stands out amid an avalanche of mediocre punk bands like the Sex Pistols. Her dishonesty, however, is staggering.

Crombieboy