She Sells Sanctuary Revolution The Cult

She Sells Sanctuary Album: Love (1985)
Revolution Album: Love (1985)
by The Cult

On She Sells Sanctuary Ian Astbury, frontman of The Cult states: "What's the song about? Sex. Plain and simple, it's about sex. I've had sex and I'm very proud of that fact."

Billy Duffy of The Cult talks about how his quasi-psychedelic guitar intro came about: "I found a violin bow, and I started to play the guitar with the bow like Jimmy Page. I did it to amuse Astbury, who was in the control room, and in order to make it sound weirder, I just hit every pedal I had on the pedal board. Then once I stopped banging the strings and doing all that, I played the middle section of the song, which was kind of a pick thing with all the BOSS pedals on, and that sound just leaped out. The producer went, 'Hold it, hold it, that's great!' And we decided to start the song with that mystical sound. If I hadn't found that violin bow laying around, we wouldn't have gone there." (from Roland's website)

"She Sells Sanctuary" was the last song to feature Nigel Preston on drums. Preston was fired from the band shortly after its release and was replaced by Big Country's drummer, Mark Brzezicki.

In 1993, a collection of remixes of this song by Youth, Butch Vig and JG Thilwell reached #15 in the UK.

She Sells Sanctuary featured in the 1992 film, With Honors and in the 2004 film, Layer Cake.

She Sells Sanctuary formed part of a mashup with Flo Rida's "Good Feeling" in a Budweiser commercial broadcast during the 2012 Super Bowl. The one-minute ad celebrates several decades of great times in the US, beginning at the end of Prohibition in 1933.

"Revolution" was the third single from the Cult's 1985 album Love, written by Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy. The song has been described as a "power ballad".

It has been noted that the chord progression in Revolution is the same as She Sells Sanctuary and Rain, the first two singles from the Love album.

She Sells Sanctuary

Oh, the heads that turn
Make my back burn
And those heads that turn
Make my back, make my back burn

The sparkle in your eyes
Keeps me alive
And the sparkle in your eyes
Keeps me alive, keeps me alive

The world
And the world turns around
The world and the world, yeah
The world drags me down

Oh, the heads that turn
Make my back burn
And those heads that turn
Make my back, make my back burn, yeah

Hey, yeah, hey, yeah
Yeah-yeah

The fire in your eyes keeps me alive
And the fire in your eyes keeps me alive
I'm sure in her you'll find sanctuary
I'm sure in her you'll find sanctuary

And the world, the world turns around
And the world and the world, the world drags me down
And the world and the world and the world, the world turns around
And the world and the world and the world and the world
And the world drags me down

Ah, hey yeah, hey yeah
And the world (hey yeah, hey), and the world turns around (hey yeah, hey)
And the world, and the world (hey yeah, hey)
Yeah, the world drags me down (hey yeah, hey)
And the world (hey yeah, hey)
Yeah, the world turns around (hey yeah, hey)
And the world, and the world (hey yeah, hey), the world drags me down (hey yeah, hey)

Yeah hey, hey yeah
Sanctuary
Sanctuary

Revolution Track 8

Pictures of never ending dreams
I can't see what these images mean
Locked inside me
Can't set the rainbows free
Like perishing flowers
They sag and twist and die

There's a revolution
There's a revolution, yeah
There's a revolution
There's a revolution

Sorrow
What does revolution mean to you?
To save today's like wishing in the wind
All my beautiful friends have all gone away
Like the waves
They flow and ebb and die

There's a revolution
There's a revolution
There's a, there's a revolution
There's a revolution

There's a revolution
There's a revolution
There's a revolution
There's a revolution, yeah

Joy or sorrow
What does revolution mean to you?
To save today's like wishing in the wind
All my beautiful friends have all gone away
Like the waves
They flow and ebb and die

There's a revolution
There's a revolution
There's a revolution
There's a revolution

Revolution
Revolution
Revolution
Revolution

Revolution
Revolution
Revolution
Revolution, yeah