Favourite Thing #526

Shakespears Sister

I always want to follow that with a great big “[sic]” in foot-high red letters – I KNOW HOW TO SPELL SHAKESPEARE AND USE AN APOSTROPHE, THANKS VERY MUCH.  Honestly, that was how they spelled it.

Grammatical accuracy aside (and how it pains me to say that), Shakespears Sister are indeed one of my very Favourite Things.  To some (OK, most) they may have been a novelty one-hit wonder starring that girl who used to be in Bananarama, but to me they were and still are a glam-rock phenomenon of songwriting and style, right up there with Bowie as far as I’m concerned.  Yes, really.

‘Hormonally Yours’ is still a fricking amazing album and one that I listen to with as much frequency as I did when I first bought it on cassette in 1992 – and my sister and I spent hours dressing up and singing along, with her invariably playing the “goodie” (Marcella) and me the “baddie” (Siobhan).

I do actually still pretty much want to be Siobhan Fahey – just to remind you of how immensely cool she was/is:

So, we all know ‘Stay’ – which was a great single with a gorgeous video (as all of Sophie Muller’s work is, obv) – but it’s not really indicative of the true brilliance of the rest of the album.  From the glam-stompy full-blown eccentric fun of ‘Catwoman From The Moon’ and the perfect pop of ‘My 16^th Apology’, to the frankly creepy ‘The Trouble With André’ (that song genuinely used to give me nightmares), it’s up there for me with the best albums of all time.  My top obsessed-over favourite, however, was ‘Moonchild’ – to the extent that I think I even considered changing my name to Moonchild at one point.  Good thing I didn’t but it’s still a lovely song; in fact, just thinking about it makes me well up with triumphant joy. 

‘Oh, little moonchild – you’re not the only one!’