When he set about writing and recording the 1987 album Floodland, The Sisters Of Mercy’s frontman/mastermind Andrew Eldritch faced a quandary. His recent band members had departed for other groups. Now it was just him and his drum machine, a.k.a. Doktor Avalanche. So he brought in bassist/backing vocalist Patricia Morrison to join him. Despite the daunting task of singing, writing, and performing nearly everything himself, Eldritch managed to create the Sisters’ best album and their most famous anthem, “This Corrosion.”
Videos by American Songwriter
Inspired by Competition
It should be noted that while Eldritch wrote the lyrics for the songs on the Sisters’ 1985 debut album First and Last and Always, it was guitarist Wayne Hussey, bassist Craig Adams, and guitarist Gary Marx who contributed most of the music composition. Due to various personal and creative differences even before that album release, that trio went on to other paths—Marx formed Ghost Dance with singer Anne-Marie Hurst, while Hussey and Adams co-founded The Mission, which have gone on to a long career as well.
But right after Eldritch’s bandmates left the Sisters—Adams initially, followed by Hussey after a further failed collaboration with the frontman—the departed duo formed the short-lived band The Sisterhood, seemingly to build off of the name association. Eldritch caught wind of this and managed to put out music under the same name before Hussey and Adams did (although they were about to do live shows), thereby securing rights to the name. It seems that moniker tussle inspired the lyrics to “This Corrosion.” Of course, Hussey and Adams went on to found The Mission, and Eldritch would return to using the Sisters of Mercy name. (That’s a very abbreviated version of that whole story.)
It’s been alleged the lyrical style of “This Corrosion” is meant to parody Hussey’s own prose and addresses the split from those two former bandmates.
Gimme the ring, kissed and told
Gimme something that I missed (gimme the ring)
A hand to hold, wild and what it seems (gimme the ring)
Kill the king with love is the law
And then we’ll turn round (gimme the ring)
Gimme dream child
And do you hear me call? (Gimme the ring)
On the loan and on the level
Still on the floor (gimme the ring)
Sing dream child
And do you hear at all?
Hey now, hey now now, sing this corrosion to me
Hey now, hey now now, sing this corrosion to me
Eldritch talked about the song with Sounds in 1987: “It’s about the idiots, full of sound and fury, who stampede around this world signifying nothing. It’s about people who sing about the revolution while selling it short, about people who sing about the corrosion of things while they themselves are falling apart. People who miss the point. … It’s also stupidly over-the-top bombastic, but rightly so.”
A Big Sound
“This Corrosion” is epic and grandiose, with the New York Choral Society lending their many voices to the vocal-only intro and different parts of the song. Their contributions make the song one of the most unique-sounding Goth tracks out there. Producer Jim Steinman, known for the “Wagnerian rock” style he brought to the world of Meat Loaf and helped make him a star, certainly enlivened this Sisters’ single with his work behind the boards.
In a 2021 interview with Louder, Eldritch was asked whether he would have preferred to have taken over all the producing duties for “This Corrosion” himself. He replied, “I would have liked to produce everything under the top deck because Steinman doesn’t really care about the rhythm section, or whether it swings or grooves or is tight as a duck’s arse—he really doesn’t care. Steinman cares about the superstructure above the top deck—choirs, pianos, bassoons.”
But Eldritch added, “I really liked working with Jim. He was a really intelligent, articulate fellow. I remember one evening when some Dolby recalibration or something like that was going on, we started to recast Macbeth with figures from popular entertainment. He could switch to doing that because he knows Macbeth. You can’t do that with most rock ‘n’ roll producers.”
In a 2013 interview with Classic Rock, Eldritch downplayed what some people thought was the strong influence of Steinman on two of the album’s standout tracks, the other being “Dominion/Mother Russia.” “People thought that with the second album we were completely Steinman-ised, but it’s untrue,” Eldritch said. “‘This Corrosion’ is ridiculous. It’s supposed to be ridiculous. It’s a song about ridiculousness. So I called Steinman and explained that we needed something that sounded like a disco party run by the Borgias. And that’s what we got.”
When Eldritch Almost Partied On
It was noted in a 2016 interview Eldritch gave to Louder than War that some musical fragments of the Sisters’ songs sounded like they could work in film scores, although it’s not something he said he had contemplated doing. But he did reveal something interesting.
“Now and then people come to me from the film world and ask for some music but they seem to have no idea of who you are really are,” Eldritch told Louder than War. “They ask to put music over the credits in a film and I say ‘no.’ One time someone came to me and said there is a major scene in a film with these guys in a car driving down a boulevard with them singing one of your songs whilst that happens and I was, ‘Well, OK,’ and I asked for the script and I thought that this is a f–king terrible film. It turned out that is was the scene in Wayne’s World where they are singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and originally they wanted ‘This Corrosion’! But for me a bunch of American morons singing my song in a Japanese car is not an exact reflection of what the song was about!”
The Sisters’ loss was Queen’s gain. And to be fair, it’s hard to imagine that scene playing out any other way than with “Bohemian Rhapsody.” However, the single/video edit for “This Corrosion” was used three times, including in the end credits, for the 2013 comedy The World’s End starring Simon Pegg.
A Goth Classic
“This Corrosion” became The Sisters of Mercy’s second-highest charting single in the UK, reaching No. 7. It would only be topped by the 1992 version of “Temple of Love,” which reached No. 3. “This Corrosion” also hit No. 6 in Ireland and No. 17 in Germany, a country that has always been big on Goth.
Floodland also fared well, hitting No. 9 in the UK (their highest-charting album there), No. 101 in the U.S. (their highest here), and the Top 30 in at least three European countries. The album reportedly sold 250,000 copies in Germany.
There are numerous mixes of “This Corrosion.” The original vinyl version of the song runs 9:31, while the CD version is 11:21. The single/video version is the only one shorter than eight and a half minutes— it runs only four and a half minutes yet isn’t available on Spotify. Luckily, it’s on YouTube. One wonders if film director Alex Proyas was influenced by the video’s rain-swept, post-apocalyptic vibe when making The Crow.
“This Corrosion” has all the elements of a definitive Sisters Of Mercy song: Eldritch’s distinctly deep baritone, a strong groove that’s worked over well, and a full, rich sound. Whether or not one might glean the intentional over-the-top approach as being tongue-in-cheek doesn’t necessarily matter. It’s one of those tunes that can get you grooving in no time. It remains a classic to this day.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
