Richard Butler, the band's frontman and co-songwriter, wrote the lyrics to this song about a specific person who left for Europe. "It's basically about my girlfriend, who I've been going out with for years," he said at the time. "She's in Italy at the moment." Butler cloaked his feelings of loneliness and desperation in metaphor, using images to express his thoughts. He wrote the lyrics, but the entire band got composition credit on the song.
The band's producer, Steve Lillywhite, knew just how to infuse Butler's vocals with enough raw emotion to sell the song. Butler recalled Lillywhite's instructions: "He told me, 'go down the pub, have a couple of beers, and when you come back, I want you to sing like it's three in the morning, and you're talking on the telephone to someone.'"
"Sister Europe" is an early Psychedelic Furs song, released on their debut album in 1980. At the time, they were making what they called "beautiful chaos," with long jams at their live shows where band members competed for solos. This sound was refined in the studio but kept its essence, creating a unique soundscape set against Richard Butler's diaphanous lyrics.
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