Key Change: Shirley Manson on Siouxsie and the Banshees

Song Exploder

Hrishikesh Hirway

Music

4.8 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is Shirley Manson. Since 1994, she’s been the lead singer of the band Garbage, and she is a bona fide rock icon. The two of us worked together on a different podcast called The Jump, which Shirley hosted and I helped produce. It was a dream of mine to get Shirley as the host of that podcast, partly because, as you’re about to hear, she has one of the greatest voices, and I could listen to her talk about anything. And so I’m especially excited to listen to her today tell me about a song that changed her life.

Thanks to Sonos for their support of the podcast. Check out sonos.com.

For more, visit songexploder.net/keychange.

And check out the Song Exploder episode with Garbage from 2014, featuring Shirley and her bandmate Butch Vig talking about how they made their song “Felt.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
0:06.7	I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe.
0:10.6	This episode contains explicit language.
0:14.3	This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about a song that changed their lives.
0:19.1	And my guest today is Shirley Manson. Since 1994,
0:22.8	she's been the lead singer of the band Garbage, and she is a bona fide rock icon. The two of us
0:29.1	work together on a different podcast called The Jump, which Shirley hosted and I helped produce.
0:34.9	It was a dream of mine to get Shirley as the host of that podcast,
0:38.3	partly because, as you're about to hear,
0:40.3	she has one of the greatest voices,
0:42.3	and I could listen to her talk about anything.
0:44.3	And so I'm especially excited to listen to her today.
0:47.3	Tell me about a song that changed her life.
0:49.3	Shirley, thank you so much for being on the show.
0:52.3	Which song are we going to talk about? Well, first of all, thank you so much for being on the show. Which song are we going to talk about?
1:00.8	Well, first of all, thank you for that lovely introduction. I wanted to talk about Drop Dead Celebration, The B-Side to Happy House by Susie and the Banshees.
1:04.8	I love that you pick this song because I know that you have a long history of fandom of
1:09.5	Susie and the Banshees and Susie Sue in particular.
1:13.6	I do, but the whole Banshees, but Susie in particular, obviously, because she's Susie Sue.
1:19.8	Well, I think it's fair to say that you're not only a fan of Susie and the Banshees, you're a real expert.
1:25.7	You wrote a foreword for a book about them. And so I was
1:29.2	wondering, could you give a little bit of an overview about the band for anyone who might not be
	...

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