Song to the Siren

Tim Buckley wrote the music and Larry Beckett the lyrics in 1967. Buckley first sang it solo on the last episode of The Monkees in 1968, Pat Boone released the first recording on Departure (1969), and Buckley's own studio version is on Starsailor (1970). Beckett took the title and imagery from Homer's Odyssey, the sirens as the danger of surrendering to a destructive love, and wanted a more hopeful message. Watts-Russell chose it as the B-side for Sixteen Days/Gathering Dust after Fraser said she would like to try it. At Blackwing in 1983 Fraser planned to sing it a cappella; Guthrie, present, reluctantly played, improvising after hearing Buckley's version once on headphones. Wikipedia says it was recorded in about three hours, and Watts-Russell said it was kept after one take and was the reason he turned a one-off project into something more ambitious.

Fraser has said she first distanced herself from the recording because she misheard the lyrics and later was spellbound, and that she would never have met Jeff Buckley without the song. It reached 3 on the UK indie chart and stayed there 101 weeks, and 66 on the UK singles chart; the Financial Times said it sold half a million copies. David Lynch wanted it for Blue Velvet but the licensing was too costly, leading to Badalamenti's "Mysteries of Love"; it was used in Lost Highway (1997) and The Lovely Bones (2009). Cocteau Twins played it occasionally, most recently on the 1995 and 1996 tour, and Fraser performed it in 2012 and with Massive Attack on tours in 2024 and 2025. Others who have covered it include John Frusciante, Sinead O'Connor and Dead Can Dance, and the dance act Messiah sampled Fraser's vocal for "Temple of Dreams" (1992). We hold two uploads, one titled Remastered, probably the 2011 box remaster, but we cannot confirm that.