"Playground Twist" is the third single released by English rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees. Issued in the UK by Polydor Records

Polydor Records

Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...

 in 1979, the track was produced by the band's manager Nils Stevenson and Mike Stavrou, a recording engineer on Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and poet. He is best known as the founder, frontman, lead singer & guitarist for T. Rex, but also a successful solo artist...

's last album Dandy in the Underworld

Dandy in the Underworld

Dandy in the Underworld is the twelfth and final studio album by British rock band T. Rex. It was released on March 11, 1977 and reached a chart peak in the UK of #26. It was the band's highest-charting album since 1974's Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow. After three commercially weak...

. It was released as the only single from the Banshees' second album Join Hands

Join Hands

Join Hands is the second studio album by English post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees. It was released by Polydor Records in the UK in September 1979. The final track is a studio recording of "The Lord's Prayer", the song that they are famous for playing in their debut live performance at the...

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"Playground Twist" has a 3/4 time signature

Time signature

The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....

 which is unusual for rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 music. The pacing of the song gives a childlike (i.e. "playground") feel (along with references to childhood nursery rhymes), although the lyrics provide a much more sinister picture. The single became Siouxsie & the Banshees' third top forty hit, peaking at number twenty-eight in the UK singles chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

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