On May 30th 1980, Siouxsie and the Banshees released “Christine”, as the second single from the album “Kaleidoscope”.
The album itself heralded the arrival of Banshees 2.0, with former Magazine guitarist John McGeoch, and drummer Budgie joining the permanent line-up.
“Christine” the song, was based on the story of Chris Costner Sizemore, an American woman who struggled with what was then know as Multiple Personality Disorder. Her case was depicted in the 1957 film “The Three Faces of Eve”, under a pseudonym, although by the 1970s she had gone public with her true identity. The screenplay was partly written by Chris’s psychiatrists, who refer to these various “faces”, by the names suggested by her different personalities, as they presented themselves. “Strawberry Girl” and “Banana Split Lady” were just two, and the doctors considered Chris to have not just “Three Faces” as the film suggested, but approximately 20.
Just guessing, but maybe as The Banshees matured and continued writing and recording songs which both lyrically and musically took them further away from their punk roots, and into the mainstream, the subject of their own identity might just have come up.
That was a lovely, haunting song and my entrée to Siouxsie + The Banshees as an American. I heard the song on the best radio show available to me at the time: The Import Hour. Central Florida’s own moral equivalent to listening to John Peel as DJ Mike Cooper played his own personal 7″ wax on the weekly show. I was lucky enough to have heard lots of great bands that year and count myself fortunate to have heard OMD from the point of their first single, “Electricity.” At least the Dindisc reissue of it.
As for John McGeoch, he was my favorite guitarist in The Banshees. What a talent. It was about 25 years ago when I realized that I had every album he had ever made! Every project he found himself in was of interest to me, even though I was not following him on the face of it. It was just a function of his good taste, I guess. I miss that guy. I wanted more music from him in the 90s but it wasn’t meant to be.