“Swimming Horses”: Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Haunting Masterpiece

“Swimming Horses”: Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Haunting Masterpiece of Art-Pop and Protest

The term gothic is often lazily attributed to Siouxsie and the Banshees—a reductive label that barely scratches the surface of their vibrant, genre-defying legacy. While elements of the gothic certainly echo throughout their discography in the most arcane and evocative sense, the Banshees consistently conjured something far more intricate and kaleidoscopic. Their music was a form of post-punk alchemy—exotic, psychedelic, and thrillingly unconventional.

After the shimmering, genre-blurring brilliance of 1980’s Kaleidoscope, Siouxsie and the Banshees continued to walk a line between underground edginess and mainstream allure. Their output defied easy categorization, blending avant-garde flourishes with pop sensibilities. This balancing act made them frequent darlings of Top of the Pops and MTV, always delivering arresting visuals and sonically daring singles. Like The Cure, with whom they shared not only an aesthetic sensibility but also a rotating lineup of collaborators, the Banshees specialized in pop that was strange, subversive, and captivating.

Robert Smith of The Cure, in fact, became deeply entwined with the Banshees’ legacy. A longtime admirer, he cited their third album Kaleidoscope as a key influence on The Cure’s 1985 classic The Head on the Door. Smith’s official stint with Siouxsie and the Banshees came in 1984, but his connection to the group stretched further back—he had filled in on guitar during their 1979 tour and collaborated with Sioux on various occasions, including their one-album side project The Glove with bassist Steven Severin.

It was during this creatively rich period that the Banshees released Hyæna, their sixth studio album. Leading the album was its most chilling and beautiful track: “Swimming Horses.” An atmospheric swirl of cascading piano, aquatic guitar textures, and ethereal vocals, the song is a masterclass in art-pop composition. Its sonic landscape feels like it’s scoring a dreamlike nature documentary, painting vivid images of the titular sea creatures drifting through deep waters. Yet beneath its shimmering surface lies a narrative of harrowing emotional weight.

In a 1992 interview with Melody Maker, Siouxsie Sioux revealed the song’s haunting origins. “This is based on a programme I saw about a female version of Amnesty, called Les Sentinelles,” she explained. The organisation worked to rescue women trapped within oppressive religious regimes—places where accusations of premarital sexual activity could result in execution, often at the hands of male relatives or by public stoning.

Sioux recounted a particularly disturbing case: a mother whose daughter developed a tumour was faced with a wave of fatal gossip. Rumours spread that the girl was pregnant, and although the doctor allowed the mother to bring back the removed tumour to disprove it, the village remained unconvinced. Knowing her daughter faced certain death, the mother poisoned her to spare her from a more brutal fate.

The organisation provided clandestine escape routes for women in similar situations, sometimes with the cooperation of sympathetic male relatives who pretended to have carried out the expected executions. But those rescued could never return. Sioux channels this despairing story through the song’s opening line: “Kinder than with poison…”

The metaphor of the male sea horse—uniquely capable of giving birth—underscores the song’s quiet challenge to entrenched patriarchal systems. Through poetic analogy, Sioux calls upon a deeper sense of maternal instinct and empathy, contrasting it with the culturally enforced brutality that sacrifices women in the name of honour.

“Swimming Horses” becomes not just a song but a stained-glass elegy—an artistic lens through which deep grief and social injustice are filtered into something luminous. Its blend of fantastical imagery and real-world urgency evokes the timeless cautionary power of folk tales like Little Red Riding Hood or Babes in the Wood. In doing so, it becomes one of the Banshees’ most enduring achievements: a sonic fable submerged in sorrow, strength, and shimmering beauty.