Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden
Harmful elements in the air
Symbols crashing everywhere
Reaps the fields of rice and reeds
While the population feeds
Junk floats on polluted water
An old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number 23?
Leave your yens on the counter please
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
Hong Kong Garden, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
Hong Kong Garden, oh-oh-oh-oh
Tourists swarm to see your face
Confuscius has a puzzling grace
Disorientated you enter in
Unleashing scents of wild jasmine
Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
A race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
Hong Kong Garden
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
"Hong Kong Garden" was the debut single released by English band Siouxsie & the Banshees. Issued in the UK by Polydor Records on August 18, 1978, the track was written by Banshees members Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, John McKay and Kenny Morris and produced by their manager Nils Stevenson and a young sound-engineer Steve Lillywhite. Paul Morley wrote in the NME : "It was no surprise that "Hong Kong Garden" should spiral into the charts just weeks after the group became Polydor people. The mystery and enigma of the single, coupled with the similarly seductive reputation of the group itself immediately landed it with plays on the radio. Its oriental 'authenticity', its flickering eroticism, its simple beauty pushed it deep into the charts."