Desperate for Divinyls: "Siren (Never Let You Go)"

Image credit: Tony Mott

This 1984 performance of "Siren (Never Let You Go)" by Divinyls is pure electricity, an audio-visual blast of kinetic energy straight to the heart. Play it loud and I bet it could revive the dead. Chrissy Amphlett is a dynamo here, stalking the stage, dumping a pitcher of water over her head, attacking the mic stand with a wild ferocity, shouting and spitting out the lyrics with frightening intensity. It's cliche to say this, but it fits: she's a force of nature, a tornado ripping across the stage and about to level the entire building. Pure charisma. Raw power.

The studio version of the song is itself enormously powerful, but in a live setting like this, it reaches even greater heights, providing one crescendo after another, until you're completely drained by song's end but loving every bit of that exhaustion. Chrissy and the band have absolutely pummeled you with their supersonic barrage, from the first note to the last.

While Bjarne Ohlin sings the opening verse, Chrissy prowls the stage, seemingly psyching herself up for battle, her power and radiance building to near-explosive levels. Then, after dousing herself, she drops the pitcher and bolts for the mic, tearing into the song, all in one quick burst of fluid motion. She proclaims that she could not forget you—you did it with your voodoo!—and declaring, even threatening, that she's never letting you go. She's dialed up to eleven, her performance never losing any heat or potency as she propels the song forward through sheer force of will.

If you ever find yourself tasked with explaining to someone exactly why Chrissy was such a remarkable talent, truly a once-in-a-lifetime performer, show them this live footage. Let "Siren" educate the uninitiated and usher them into lifelong fandom. There's no doubt that it will do just that; you simply cannot watch and listen to this song and walk away from it anything less than altered for life. It's the power of music, fully unleashed, captured in one electrified, propulsive three-minute blast of frenzied rock fury. And Chrissy is the engine making it all go. She strangles both the mic and the song to within an inch of each's life. She sings of voodoo, of never letting you go, and of never forgetting you. In reality it's her voodoo working its magic on you, and you most certainly will never let go of or forget her. Never. Can't forget her.

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