MySpace a place for friends

Marcella Detroit

Siobhan (solo) "White Rabbit"

Siobhan Fahey - White Rabbit (Live)

Add to My Profile | More Videos

In 1987, Siobhan Fahey decided to leave Bananarama, the band she had formed with punk-pals Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward in 1981. Having married Eurythmic Dave Stewart in 1986 and given birth to son Sam, Siobhan's life was changing direction having drastically moved away from the normadic, care-free lifestyle epitomised by Bananarama to one of a mother and wife. At the same time, Bananarama were also changing direction - they had now become "squeeky clean pop stars" as a result of their collaboration with new producers Stock Aitken and Waterman. Siobhan took an sustained dislike at Watermans opionated nature and determination to turn Bananarama into the "sex-kitten" pop divas they had always mocked. Her dissatisfaction with Pete and her deteiorating relationship with Sarah and Keren meant that it was time to leave Bananarama. Before doing so, she had already began forming ideas for her next pop invention. Whatever form this invention would take, she had decided to call it Shakespears Sister. Shakespears Sister was a title of an essay written by Virginia Wolf and a title later adopted by Morrisey for a Smith's song. The only difference being that both Wolf and The Smith's kept the original spelling of Shakespeare. In Siobhan's case, a friends logo omitted the "e" and the spelling ensued throughout Shakespears Sister's career. Having moved to the US with husband Dave Stewart, Siobhan began working with a producer who lived across the street, Richard Feldman, on ideas for an album. It was at the early stage in their working relationship, that Richard introduced Siobhan to an ex-girlfriend of his, Marcy Levy. Levy had a history of working in the music history, having worked with Eric Clapton on "Lay Down Sally", Chuka Khan and an assortion of other Motown-esque musicians in the late 1970s/early 80s. The most important contribution by Levy was her proficient ability to play various instruments and her multi-octave voice. Together with Richard, Marcy and Siobhan began working on a debut album for Shakespears Sister. It is worth pointing however, that at this stage, the concept of Shakespears Sister was a band, to be fronted by Siobhan with music produced as a result of a collaboration of artists and people in the industry (producers etc).

Having been invited by Siobhan to contribute backing vocals, Marcy's role became more noticable to the public, especially so on You're History. By 1988, the first album was nearing completion and, to test the waters, London Records reluctantly released the first single Break My Heart (double a-sided with Heroine). Siobhan had decided to remain with London Records (with whom Bananarama had signed to from their very early releases) and despite a mutual dislike between herself and executive of London, Collin Bell, Siobhan was monitored closely by those in charge to ensure she was meeting their expectations. To the surprise of many around her, Siobhan's new music was a far more darker side of pop and after releasing Break My Heart, London decided to release "You're History" (the last song to be recorded for the album). On "You're History", Marcella took a far more prominant role and one which saw the pair interpreted, visually, as a duo. For the first time, Marcy was seen in the promotional video and had a prominant vocal role in the song. Naturally enough, You're History was widely interpreted by the media as a reference by Siobhan to Bananarama (a claim which Siobhan never addressed). Whatever it's meaning, the song was Shakespears Sister's first Top 10 in the UK and ensured London's confidence in Siobhan and her new musical venture. The release of the debut Shakespears Sister album, Sacred Heart, had in fact, preceeded the release and success of You're History and was released at the end of 1988. Inititally, it failed to chart but after the release of You're History, it quickly entered the charts and enjoyed a good run in the Top 40. Following singles however, failed to chart to the hights of You're History. Run Silent, Run Deep failed to enter the Top 40 and neither did a remixed version of Dirty Mind released in 1990.

1990 saw Siobhan and Marcella return to the studio to work on the second Shakespears Sister album. London had given the go-ahead for the pair to start writing and recording. This time however, Siobhan decided that the pair would be an official duo. The musical proficiency that Siobhan lacked was fulfilled by Marcella and the imagery, direction (both musically and visually) was controlled by Siobhan. The pair worked together very well, whilst Marcella's musical background was far different from that of Siobhan what one brought the other lacked. Initially, what became "Hormonally Yours" was to be a video album. An idea vastly ahead of its time, the notion was inspired by a film called "Catwomen On The Moon", the movie, a cheap B Movie was about a group of strange women from the moon who kept falling in love with various "earthlings". The idea of writing songs to fit various scenes in the movie appealed to Siobhan, Marcella and Dave (who took a significant role in the writing of some of the songs) but not to London Records who immediately told them that they were "a record company not a film company". However, the film still inspired many of the songs which made the album "Catwoman", "Emotional Thing" and most importantly "Stay". By mid-1991, Hormonally Yours was near completion. Siobhan had given birth to her second son, Django, however, due to a miscarriage, Marcella had not given birth to her child until she got pregnant again and thus son Maxwell was born in 1991. As a result, the release of the album was delayed and during which time, London Records decided to ask Siobhan to write and record another track. This track became Goodbye Cruel World. So pleased with this track were London that they released it as the first single and so, in September 1991, the first single from Shakespears Sister's new album was released.

In synch with the release of the single, Shakespears Sister went on a mini-tour at venues throughout the UK. Response to the tour was positive and it was anticipated that the response to the single would be the same. However, this was not the case; Radio One refused to play it and there was no appearance on the all-important Top Of The Pops. Even a free large poster with the 12" issue and special magic picture sleeve for the CD failed to garner sales. The single entered the UK charts and crawled to the Top 50 and thus disapointment was widespread. However, the song which really grabbed people's interest - friends of Siobhan and Marcy's and most importantly London Records - was Stay. During the conception of Hormonally Yours, Siobhan and husband Dave would hold dinner parties at their various houses in London, France and the US with many celebrity guests in attendance. Marcella would attend the parties accompanied by her faithful guitar where she would play various rifts and other tunes. On one occassion she began playing a tune which Dave picked up on and together they came up with the basis for Stay. Dave was particularly keen for Siobhan and Marcy to write a song which highlighted the quality of Marcy's voice. However, upto this point, Siobhan was clearly omitted from any role in the song and thus she was asked to come up with a section for her in the song. In juxtaposition to Marcy's section, and in keeping with the theme and story of Catwomen From The Moon, Siobhan breaks into a dramatic, rock style hook, which, it could be argued made Stay.

Thus, in January 1992, Stay was released. Radio play was instant and this time London had chosen to release it as a two-part single (thus highlighting their faith in the single as well as a ploy to garner sales). Immediately the song gained a good reaction and quickly entered the Top 20 and then promptly into the Top 5 and then.. number one. It stayed at number one for eight weeks which was, and is, longer than any other girl duo. Siobhan did not feel that "Stay" was representative of Shakespears Sister as a band or indeed fulfilling in the intention with which Shakespears Sister was formed. None-the-less, Stay made Shakespears Sister a worldwide-known entity, the song was also number one in several countries overseas and reached number five in the US charts. Interestingly, the video for Stay was banned on German television as they saw it as depicting the "raising of the dead" when, in fact, it was actually a fairy-tale story of good overcoming evil and the man wasn't even dead! However, this controversy aided the songs success and saw the song enter the Top 20.