The Arriving Beauty Queen

Siouxsie and the Banshees “Kiss Them for Me”

“Kiss Them for Me” is a song about the life and death of Jayne Mansfield, full of specific references to her career and public persona. But more than that, it’s a song about glamor that can give the listener a contact high sensation of glamorousness. The music, which pulls in elements of bhangra, hip-hop, dance music, and orchestral pop, has a slick, trebly tone that feels like being sucked into a fantasy world where everything is gleaming and perfect. It’s like every beat and note is coated in glitter.

A lot of Siouxsie’s music and art is in some way about embracing forms of glamor, and creating an alternate reality for yourself. I’ve never felt like this was an option for me, given the circumstances of my body and life, but when I listen to “Kiss Them for Me,” I am grateful to feel it vicariously. Which is funny, because the song itself is doing the same thing, about a woman who willed herself into this glamorous life. Maybe glamor is really just some idea of a life that’s more beautiful than your own, and claiming a part of it for yourself. You need to be defiant. I’m too willing to accept my lot, but people like Jayne and Siouxsie aren’t, so they remake themselves and the world around them. Even Jayne’s gruesome car crash death, which Siouxsie sings about in the fourth verse, becomes lovely and romantic.

“Kiss Them for Me” is one of those songs in which the best hook is not the chorus itself, but rather the pre-chorus – “nothing or no one will ever make me let you down.” The melody on this part is just glorious, and I love the way it seems to ascend dramatically up to the proper chorus, as if that’s some other physical plane. I imagine that it’s like walking up a staircase to a terrace overlooking some incredible view of a city, and looking down at everything, feeling like you’re truly someone special.

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