Lost in Translation Vol. 18 REVEALED

Another week, another midweek hint, and another correct answer!

Happy Sunday folks! It’s been a bit of a busy week and weekend for me, so I’m coming in hot with a short intro to this week’s LIT revelation. We’re down to two weeks left in the Lost in Translation series with the penultimate installment coming tomorrow. I’ve just launched a new series—All-Time Favorite Songs—and published the first installment yesterday; if you missed that, you can find it here:

---

And now what you’ve been waiting for! It’s time to provide the answer to Monday’s Lost in Translation.

The Translated Lyric

Here’s the lyric I provided:

Hot and burning nose

Flowing into your open mouth

Your body melts away like a layer of ash.

Torture in captivity

---

The Original Lyric

And here’s the original lyric as it was before being passed through half a dozen languages:

Hot and burning in your nostrils

Pouring down your gaping mouth

Your molten bodies, blanket of cinders

Caught in the throes

---

Are you enjoying Joy in the Journey? Why not hit the button above to automagically receive new posts in your inbox every time I publish!

---

The Song

As has become my custom recently, I was a little vague and broad when providing the hint for this week’s song when I wrote “We’re headed back to the second half of the 80s this week, for a song by a legendary post-punk band, a track that turned into a crossover hit and found its way on to the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart.” While the band does indeed fall quite firmly within the broader post-punk genre, I made a conscious choice not to reveal a more specific sub-genre. As intended, The Cure (several tracks from Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me easily would’ve qualified given the initial hints) came up as an option for one of our readers, while PiL was also mentioned.

With no correct answer forthcoming, towards the end of the week I threw out another hint: “Often lumped in with other gothic rock artists, this influential band had a sound that evolved significantly through the years, often from album to album. This album on which week’s track appeared was the band’s seventh consecutive top 20 release on the UK album chart.” While I added a lot more information, I purposely chose not to reveal the gender of the lead singer. If I’d gone with something like “This mid 80’s female-fronted goth band”, it would’ve narrowed the universe of bands down very quickly.

Once again, it was loyal and long-time reader Kevin Alexander that came into the comments after the midweek hint with the correct artist and song, even going so far as to quote the original pre-mangled lyrics. Great job once again Kevin!!

For those that didn’t see the responses in the comments or weren’t able to figure out the correct song, the lyrics come from the Siouxsie and the Banshees track “Cities In Dust”, from their seventh studio album, 1986’s Tinderbox. As per the song’s Wikipedia entry, “Although not Siouxsie and the Banshees' first song to enter the US Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart, it was their first significant success, climbing to No. 17.”

I hadn’t heard this song for years before hearing it again during the 2017 film Atomic Blonde starring Charlize Theron and James McAvoy. I’ve loved this film since I first saw it, and it’s one of my go-to movies when I’m looking for a fun action thriller. Based on the 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, the story is set in Berlin (both West and East) during the late stages of the Cold War with Theron, an MI6 operative, sent in to recover a stolen list of covert agents. With fantastic chase scenes, brilliant (and violent) set pieces, and lots of twists, turns and betrayals, it’s a fun watch from start to finish. An enterprising YouTube user has stitched together a couple clips from the film soundtracked by this week’s song:

With a revolving cast of bandmates—Sid Vicious manned the drums at their first gig and Robert Smith toured with the band and played guitar on one album—the band was anchored over a twenty year career by Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin. All eleven of their studio albums charted in the UK, with eight making the top 20, including two within the top ten. Despite often being associated with goth rock, Sioux preferred not to be boxed in, more readily associating herself with the punk movement. Following their final Banshees album, 1995’s The Rapture, Sioux released one solo album and Severin has gone on to release several instrumental albums and score numerous film soundtracks. While both artists do continue to perform publicly, Sioux has done so only sparingly, with her most recent appearance coming in 2023.

Here’s the music video for this week’s song, cued up at the start of the lyric:

---

Feel free to jump into the comments with your thoughts:

• How did you do? Were you close? Or completely stumped?

• Did you know this song already?

• Would you have been able to name the song from the original lyrics?

We’ll see you again tomorrow with a new installment of Lost in Translation. Until then, happy listening!!