SONG MEANINGS (quotes by Robert Smith except where noted)


EASY CURE ERA 1977/78


MEATHOOK

It's an in joke of sorts, arising from an incident during the Hansa days when an old producer kept complaining that one song had no hooklines. (Ten Imaginary Years -1988)

A strained comparison between the chart pop song catch and revolting dead meat ? (Curenews -1988)


PILLBOX TALES

We [with Lol Tolhurst] sat down over a few beers to write the song, the one and only time we did that, and it turned out to be meaningless ! (Join the dots booklet -2004)


SEE THE CHILDREN, FEAR THE CHILDREN

A bit of a dangerous song. (private interview in Melbourne 1984)


KILLING AN ARAB

A short poetic attempt at condensing my impression of the key moments in "L'Etranger" (The Outsider) by Albert Camus. (Curenews -1991)


PLASTIC PASSION

Alliteration - this song started out as a pastiche of the very early ('Pyjamarama') Roxy Music style. (Curenews -1991)



THREE IMAGINARY BOYS ERA 1979


10:15 SATURDAY NIGHT

Self explanatory - me sitting in the kitchen sink waiting for a phone call... (Curenews -1988)

10:15 was written at the table in our kitchen watching the tap dripping, feeling utterly morose, drinking my dad's home beer... (Join the dots booklet -2004)


ACCURACY

The ease and desire of hurting someone you sometimes love. (Curenews -1988)


ANOTHER DAY

Another entropy and apathy song - how I sometimes (often) felt on waking.
(Curenews -1988)


OBJECT

A decisive sneer hiding a sour desire. (Curenews -1988)


SUBWAY SONG

A story I was told... (Curenews -1988)


FOXY LADY

Michael wanted to sing a song - and i didn't like the idea of him singing my words - so we picked a cover version. this one was chosen because it was unlikely at the time !
(Curenews -1988)


SO WHAT

Me drunk !!! (Curenews -1988)

A sort of scream : after four days shut in a studio, we just had to do something.
(Blank Space -1979)


FIRE IN CAIRO

An Eastern fantasy... (Curenews -1988)


IT'S NOT YOU

Hateful song. (Curenews -1988)


THREE IMAGINARY BOYS

A dream I had. (Curenews -1988)


THE WEEDY BURTON

I'd already taught myself to play a bit by reading Bert Weedon's 'Play In A Day' books using my older brother's guitar. It's a sort of tongue in cheek tribute to Bert.
(Join the dots booklet -2004)


WORLD WAR

A nonsense. (Curenews -1991)


DO THE HANSA

Another nonsense. (Curenews -1991)

Get a fake tan, wear ill fitting 'designer' clothes, gold, particularly on your little finger, and dance without feeling - this is doing the hansa (as far as I can remember...).
(Curenews -1988)


WINTER

It was part of this four-part concept thing we’d done the year before [1978] – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We used to do two sets in this pub – at the early evening set, everyone was sober, so we’d try out stuff. I can remember thinking it was toe-curlingly awful and being angry that Parry would even consider including it on the album.
(Record Collector -2004)


BOYS DON'T CRY

An attempt at a 60's pop song. (Curenews -1991)


JUMPING SOMEONE ELSE'S TRAIN

About fashion. Particularly about the 'mod' revival of the time (1978/79). (Curenews -1991)


I'M COLD

It was a 150bpm kind of song, i thought that if we slowed the tape down to half speed, it might show another heavier, darker side of the band. (Join the dots booklet -2004)




SEVENTEEN SECONDS ERA 1980


A REFLECTION

This was to set a contemplative mood for the whole record. (Curenews -1989)


PLAY FOR TODAY

The fraudulent aspects of an insincere relationship. (Curenews -1989)


SECRETS

Hopelessly wishing to have the courage to seize missed opportunities. (Curenews -1989)


IN YOUR HOUSE (working titles : S, AM, Two People)

Feeling uncomfortable in someone else's presence but still always returning...
(Curenews -1989)


THREE

The eternal triangle. (Curenews -1989)


THE FINAL SOUND

Matthieu's elegy. (Curenews -1989)


A FOREST (working titles : Bleak One, At Night)

A childhood dream (nightmare) that came true with adolescence. (Curenews -1989)

I was lost in a forest once when I was little. At the time I thought it was scary 'cos it still stays with me that it's much scarier pushing through wet trees than it is pretending that you're lost in a crowd. You, sort of, build yourself up to animal-type reactions, being actually lost and mentally lost... (Gordion Knot fanzine -1980)


M

About a girl... (Curenews -1989)


AT NIGHT

Inspired by the Kafka short story of the same name - the precursor to "Faith".
(Curenews -1989)


SEVENTEEN SECONDS

An arbitrary measure of time - one that seemed to be suddenly everywhere once the song was written. (Curenews -1989)


ANOTHER JOURNEY BY TRAIN (working titles : 44F, Horse Racing)

The name came about because the demo rhythm went from sounding a bit like galloping horses to sounding like a runaway train. I also felt like we were embarking on the next stage of a journey... (Join the dots booklet -2004)




FAITH ERA 1981


THE HOLY HOUR

Written whilst sitting listening to mass in the catholic friary church in Crawley on sunday night, trying to make sense of the communal response and faces. (Curenews -1989)


PRIMARY

Toying (?) with the idea that it may be better to die very young, innocent and dreaming...or even to murder as a gift... (Curenews -1989)


OTHER VOICES

Blotting out the world through the eating of forbidden fruit ? Deafened by lust ?
(Curenews -1989)

About a girl who got a new head for Christmas. (Düsseldorf 1981 live concert)


ALL CATS ARE GREY

A nightmare of being lost / trapped in caves - echoes of the grave and of prison cells and again of growing old. (Curenews -1989)


THE FUNERAL PARTY

About the death of my grandparents, and ultimately, I suppose, of the death of my parents, and then me... (Curenews -1989)


DOUBT

Expressing the anger and frustration at the pointlessness of everything (at the time ?), trying to fight the waves of absurdity. (Curenews -1989)


THE DROWNING MAN

Mourning Fuchsia, a symbol, a girl, a character in "Titus Groan" by Mervyn Peake : mourning the death of innocence, the death of blind love... (Curenews -1989)


FAITH

About a lack of and desire for faith, of any kind, in anything.... (Curenews -1987)

Self explanatory, as optimistic as I could get, it does, or should, offer a note of HOPE. (Curenews -1989)


DESCENT (working title : B-Side)

Simon and I were both playing basses on Primary. We wanted to keep that instrumentation. It was always going to be an instrumental, because I didn't want to write anymore words. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES

Inspired by the eponymous book by Penelope Farmer. (Curenews -1991)

I was obsessed with the basic idea in it of time shifting / feeling out of place.
(Curenews -1987)


SPLINTERED IN HER HEAD

See 'Charlotte'. (Curenews -1991)

The intention was that the song should complement Charlotte and despite my slightly deranged harmonica playing, I think it does ! (Join the dots booklet -2004)



PORNOGRAPHY ERA 1982


ONE HUNDRED YEARS

Pure self loathing and worthlessness, and contains probably the key line - the line that underpinned this period of writing: "it doesn't matter if we all die"... Everything is empty. This song is despair. (Curenews -1990)


A SHORT TERM EFFECT

When I came across "The Language of Madness" in a bookshop, I noticed that it had a drawing by a mental patient which looked very like this head (the head found whilst recording the Charlotte Sometimes video in an old asylum), so I bought it."A charcoal face bites my hand" – that was a nightmare that one of the patients had. He would draw people in charcoal and they would come to live in his dreams". (Flexipop -1982)

About a drug and its effect. Short-term I thought. (Curenews -1990)


THE HANGING GARDEN

When I was at home, listening to the noises of cats outside... It made me go strange... I wanted to go out in the garden... so I did... stark naked... stupid...
(Ten Imaginary Years -1988)

Something like about the purity and hate of animals fucking. (Curenews -1990)


SIAMESE TWINS

About the ugliness of love. Its despairing, as if I was getting rid of a whole piece of me. I thought I wouldn't be able to keep the two parts of my personality, that the balance was impossible. Once 'Siamese Twins' was written, I realised I didn't want the other side of it anyway - that it was seductive and exciting but in a deranged sort of way, that there was no substance to it. I had to detach myself from a lifestyle. (Ten Imaginary Years -1988)

About the hate and purity of people fucking. (Curenews -1990)


THE FIGUREHEAD

Was a grotesque skull sculpture I discovered in the disused asylum we used in the "Charlotte Sometimes" video. I took it home to talk to - to confess to ? This song is about guilt. (Curenews -1990)


A STRANGE DAY

Was how I would feel if it would only be the end of the world. (Curenews -1990)


COLD

Another song about another drug and its grip... (Curenews -1990)


PORNOGRAPHY

The last song I wrote for a while, is fueled by the same selfmockery, self-hate, that burned in 100 years, but it is, if only very slightly, a little more hopeful than the others... I am escaping (I escaped) by blaming someone else. A murder or suicide ? "I must fight this sickness..." (Curenews -1990)




JAPANESE WHISPERS ERA 1982/83


LET'S GO TO BED

A nonsense set of words to complement what I then considered to be a hideous piece of 'commercial' pop... but it grew on me !!! (Curenews -1990)


JUST ONE KISS

The song I felt should've been the 'a' side - about a night I once had... (Curenews -1990)


THE WALK / THE DREAM

We hired in an Oberheim set and ran away with ourselves ... true stories...
(Curenews -1990)


THE UPSTAIRS ROOM

Written while I was sleeping on the floor in Steve Severin's flat ... not so true stories... (Curenews -1990)


SPEAK MY LANGUAGE

More nonsense. (Curenews -1990)

I had the opening lines written down but the rest is just an outburst, probably the closest I've ever come to coherent stream of consciousness singing. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


THE LOVECATS

The idea for Lovecats came from Aristocats. I knew all the words by heart, I even bought the film, and I was completely obsessed... (Ten Imaginary Years -1988)

In fact this song is not about cats but about a suicide pact between two lovers. Hence the text 'into the sea, you and me...' My idea of a lovesong. (Humo -2003)


MR PINK EYES

Us "jamming" late one night - the words are about me... (Curenews -1990)

Me some mornings. (Curenews -1990)

I wrote the words after I caught sight of myself in the studio toilet mirror.
(Join the dots booklet -2004)




THE TOP ERA 1984


SHAKE DOG SHAKE

Me hating myself... but a fab open guitar tuning... (Curenews -1990)


BIRDMAD GIRL

The polar bear was the symbol (zoo-wise) for me insensible savagery caged to be stared at. Or something like that...? (Curenews -1990)


WAILING WALL

About my trip to Jerusalem with the Banshees... (Curenews -1990)


DRESSING UP

About performing. (Curenews -1990)


THE CATERPILLAR

Hope... (Curenews -1990)


PIGGY IN THE MIRROR

Me hating myself again - references I recognize to the Nic Roey film "Bad Timing" which Severin and I watched one night in slow motion... Too many drugs... Blah blah blah. (Curenews -1990)


THE EMPTY WORLD

The flip side of Charlotte... (Curenews -1990)
It talks about life in England. Nationalism... (Libération -1984)


BANANAFISHBONES

The title, for some no-reason, from "A perfect day for bananafish" - a short story by J D Salinger... Again me hating myself... (Curenews -1990)


THE TOP

Finally coming to my senses - something of a milestone lyric this one - and good fun spending the night getting just the right spinning top sound take !!! (Curenews -1990)

A song about not being able to do what you want to. It's a bit like Faith. (Libération -1984)


THROW YOUR FOOT

Magic mushroom tea? And good pop ! (Curenews -1990)

About me tripping up, in and out -a kind of dance I invented and perfected.
(Join the dots booklet -2004)


NEW DAY

A drug induced improvisation. (Curenews -1991)

I ended up in hospital that night. I was mentally and physically exhausted and I collapsed in the way back to my hotel. the last thing I remember was hearing someone say : an ambulance is on its way. (Join the dots booklet -2004)




THE HEAD ON THE DOOR ERA 1985


IN BETWEEN DAYS

About trio's - days, people, places, ages... (Curenews -1991)


KYOTO SONG (working title : Koto Song)

A night spent on someone's floor - Steve Severin's I think... (Curenews -1991)

Half of it comes from a dream Mary had - death in a swimming pool - and half from one of mine about eating someone.. (Ten imaginary Years 1988)


THE BLOOD

About a Portuguese drink called 'the Tears of Christ'. I drank a bottle and this came out. (Curenews -1991)


SIX DIFFERENT WAYS

We've never done a waltz. We've never done anything in a waltz time. It's actually a 6/8 time which is why that was called "Six". And I used to write down some letters saying : "this is the six different lies I've told today". (1985 interview, Baktabak Records)

I'd always wanted to do a waltz. I'd intended to with the Glove but Severin never managed to get the rhythm right! The words are about the way I treat people. The six is not that important - it could've been five. (Ten Imaginary Years -1988)

Multiple personalities. (Curenews -1991)


PUSH

How you sometimes irrationally hate other people just because they're there.
(Ten Imaginary Years -1988)

A train journey home. (Curenews -1991)

About being a girl. (Cleveland 1985 live concert)

About how I used to wear a dress and travel on a train (Orange 1986 live concert)


THE BABY SCREAMS

Trying to make a dream real. (Curenews -1991)


CLOSE TO ME

Frustrated, humming with your head under the pillow, like the end of a day where you feel nothing has been achieved and you're in a hurry to get things over with so you can start the next one. You tell yourself tomorrow you're going to do lots of positive things. But the next day is just like the one before. Sometimes it goes on for weeks. (Ten Imaginary Years -1988)

The disappointment of dreams made real. (Curenews -1991)

The futility of it all. Sometimes you get to nine in the evening and you can't think of one decent thing you've done all day. (Select 1991)

A song about claustrophobic pursuits of the night... I can say no more. (thecure.com -1997)


A NIGHT LIKE THIS

The words were written in the rain. I was upset... (Curenews -1991)


SCREW

Drugs. (Curenews -1991)


SINKING

Despair at getting older and less true. (Curenews -1991)


THE EXPLODING BOY

Excess (and lack of understanding). (Curenews -1991)


A FEW HOURS AFTER THIS

About a party I went to. (Curenews -1991)

A slightly deranged experiment, an attempt to do something orchestral and quirky that didn't quite come together. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


A MAN INSIDE MY MOUTH

The other me... a dream he had... I hope it was a dream ! (Curenews -1991)

I played up to the weirder sexual aspects of the lyric, I had fun with it ! The song is a weird juxtaposition of two completely different events, the man inside my mouth was also the stranger who sometimes used my voice. I felt that what I was saying was often at odds with what I was thinking and feeling. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


STOP DEAD

Meeting my match. (Curenews -1991)




KISS ME KISS ME KISS ME ERA 1987


THE KISS

The sickness of lust. (Curenews -1992)

It’s about disgust that I sometimes feel after certain things I’ve done, certain physical things. It goes back to the time of “The Top” when I was quite strange...
(Les Inrockuptibles -1987)


CATCH

'A girl I think I used to know'. (Curenews -1992)

It's about a girl I know who has a peculiar way of laughing. I called it 'Catch' because Hansa used to say : 'you write good songs but there's never a catch'. (Select 1991)

In 1970, aged 10, I fell off my bike and suffered quite severe concussion ; sporadically, over the following two years, I suffered fleeting but intense daytime hallucinations of a girl called 'Bunny'. In 1984, in NYC JFK airport I met a girl who was the spitting image of 'Bunny'; her real name was Anna ; we talked very briefly... Catch is about this chance encounter. (thecure.com 1997)

Robert had just discovered LSD [in 1982] which he decided to call "Anna" for some reason.
(Steven Severin - Siouxsie and the Banshees, the authorised biography 2003)


TORTURE

Abasement in a basement... (Curenews -1992)
A bandage on a wound… (Les Inrockuptibles -1987)
It's a sort of bondage song I think really. (Promotional 12" interview 1987)


IF ONLY TONIGHT WE COULD SLEEP

A slow and happy death. (Curenews -1992)


WHY CAN'T I BE YOU ?

Me bemoaning my inelegance ? Or being jealous of someone else's poise ?
(Curenews -1992)

A fan said to me : I wish I could be you. In the song, I turned that around. (Select 1991)

In summer 1985 I took a short trip to Lima, Peru, for my first (and so far only) visit with Aurora, my adopted/sponsored child. Why Can't I Be You was written on the last evening of my visit, as a sort of keepsake. (thecure.com 1997)

The title is not to be taken generally, on the contrary it comes from a particular situation ; I was in the middle of a tense discussion and these people around the table were looking at me as if I was going to make some ground breaking revelations, and I thought to myself "good God, why can’t I be elsewhere? Why isn’t someone else in my place?" I would’ve traded with anyone; I would’ve preferred to be that guy leaning at the bar than myself.
(Les Inrockuptibles -1987)


HOW BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE

Adapted from a short story by Baudelaire, Les Yeux des Pauvres. (Curenews -1992)

It's from a Baudelaire short story. Someone gave me a book of Arthur Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Verlaine short stories and poems, and I read through them all and one just really struck me - because I'd actually written a song like that, round the time we were doing "Faith" about how you think that you really know someone, and you really love someone, and suddenly discover that they can react to something you find very important, and they react in a totally different way, and you can't believe that it's the same person.
(Promotional 12" interview 1987)


THE SNAKEPIT

A bitter experience. (Curenews -1992)

I had been taken to a party with a car filled with stupid girls, Snake Pit comes from the feeling that I had at that moment : you’re stuck in a situation where it would be even more annoying to try and get out ; so you keep on taking it, living a lie for a moment. The next day, I would regret it : why didn’t I leave ? Why didn’t I react ? I often accept things only to regret them afterwards. (Les Inrockuptibles -1987)

A particular incident that happened quite a while ago that had stuck in my mind. That happened on someone's birthday a few years ago. It was in a terrible sort of disco. It's literal, I was just taken somewhere in a car full of girls and it was really just a dreadful sort of experience... I shouldn't say anything much further. (Promotional 12" interview 1987)


HEY YOU !

A party song. (Curenews -1992)


JUST LIKE HEAVEN

One night on a cliff top a long time ago. (Curenews -1992)

It takes two incidents from real life : the main one happened on Beachy Head, 15 years earlier. The song is about hyper-ventilating -kissing and fainting to the floor. The idea is that one night like that is worth a thousand hours of drudgery. (Select 1991)

A song about a life-altering night of magic and trickery spent in 1980 with a girl called Mary on the cliff top at the notoriously beautiful 'suicide spot' Beachy Head, Sussex, England. (thecure.com 1997)


ALL I WANT

Sex ! (Curenews -1992)

All I Want did actually start off "All I Want/Is to hold you like a doll" but something happened and it turned into "dog". That's about as pure sexist as you're ever gonna get.
(Starhits -1987)

It's "I want to hold you like a dog". You see, Simon holds his dog very lovingly, very gently... I actually meant dog in a more lustful manner. (Cream -1987)


HOT HOT HOT !!!

Drugs ! (Curenews -1992)

This was about three strange sexual experiences : in a basement in a club, on a ferry, and at home in my bedroom. Lightning striking was an analogy. I was thinking of the children's book -Earthfast (by William Mayne) about a boy hit by lightning and going back in time - and of that bloke in the Guiness book of Records who's been hit numerous times. (Select 1991)

Espousing the general delights of "altered states of consciousness". (thecure.com -1997)


ONE MORE TIME

Mourning the loss of innocence. (Curenews -1992)

About my fear of dying -which everyone has. (Starhits -1987)


LIKE COCKATOOS

A dream ? I'm not sure if this one isn't a true story... (Curenews -1992)

You know when you're little and it's summer and you're out on the roadside and you sit there and there's a storm where it's just rain. And you go out and it's like bubbles at your feet. And the next time you see it when you're old, it's like a dream and something upsets you and you look down and you see bubbles in the road and you sort of cry. That's what that song is about. ((Starhits -1987)

The title obviously comes from the Patrick White book, but the song has nothing to do with, and has no relevance to the book at all, but the sound on the beginning of it was actually supposed to be a string section on the emulator and I just played through the different sounds and thought "That sounds like, if you imagine, like a big flock of birds taking off" and I thought to myself "It's like cockatoos". (Promotional 12" interview 1987)


ICING SUGAR

More drugs ! (Curenews -1992)
It's about drugs as well. I suppose in the funny way. (Starhits -1987)


THE PERFECT GIRL

A love song. (Curenews -1992)


A THOUSAND HOURS

" Why can't I be me ?" (Curenews -1992)
Pure frustration. (Starhits -1987)


SHIVER AND SHAKE

An appreciation of Lol, and others like him. (Curenews -1992)
It's about all the people I hate ! One person in particular will know who it is. (Starhits -1987)


FIGHT

"Never give up never give in if you're determined..." (Curenews -1992)

We've never really done a positive song like that - lyrically as positive as that - where I'm actually saying "Do something about it" - this is almost anthemic.
(Promotional 12" interview 1987)


A JAPANESE DREAM

Something that happened whilst recording the 'Glove' album I think. (Curenews -1992)

A trip to Japan... and various aspects of addiction ! (Join the dots booklet -2004)


BREATHE

The song that captures late night Miraval - stars and sighs. (Curenews -1992)

That hopeless wanting for what has been, knowing that it is gone forever.
(Join the dots booklet -2004)


A CHAIN OF FLOWERS

A story Simon told me once. (Curenews -1992)
A song about the awful fear of losing someone you love. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


SNOW IN SUMMER

Imagery - not one of my favourite songs, this didn't really turn out right. (Curenews -1992)


SUGAR GIRL

She has a name... (Curenews -1992)
A musical postcard to a sugar girl. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


EYEMOU

A recital of an ancient Japanese tea ceremony. Parched Art being obsessed with tea and contemplation. (Curenews -1988)




DISINTEGRATION ERA 1989


PLAINSONG (working title : Strings Only)

It's about an incident that happened late last summer. (Music Box TV -1989)
Plainsong enlightens different aspects of an obsession. (Oor Magazine -1989)


PICTURES OF YOU

It's about the idea you hold someone. It goes back a bit to a song like How Beautiful You Are. The idea of you hold someone isn't really what that person is like. Sometimes you completely lose touch with what a person has turned into. You just want to hold onto what they were. (Music Box TV -1989)

I lost the pictures I always carried around in my wallet. I realized I'm clutching old pictures of things, even taken before my birth, to give me sense that things went on then.
(Select 1991)

Loosely based on an essay by Myra Poleo entitled "The Dark Power of Ritual Pictures" -after reading it I destroyed all my old "personal" photographs, and almost all my "home" cine and video collection - I think I was trying to wipe away my past... Within days I was suffering great regret, I still am ! (thecure.com 1997)


CLOSEDOWN

A song I wrote about six years ago [1983]. And it just shows up and it hasn't changed much. I still feel the same way. (Music Box TV -1989)


LOVESONG

Self explanatory. Just for people. (Music Box TV -1989)

I gave Mary a tape of it for a wedding present. She went away to the other room to listen to it, then smothered me with kisses. It's the most upfront, true, frank, and honest thing that I've ever sung. It's about love, but also about the inability to ever really know someone. (Select 1991)


LAST DANCE

That's someone that you meet and you haven't seen for a long time. And you used to have very strong feelings for and you don't anymore, you suddenly realize... It's a horrible sensation. (Music Box TV -1989)


LULLABY

It's about the inability to sleep, or the fear of sleep really. (Music Box TV -1989)

That's the sort of lullaby my Dad used to sing when I was younger, he used to make them up. There was always a horrible ending. There would be something like 'Sleep now, pretty baby,' and then there'd be an 'Or you won't wake up at all' coda to the song.
(Chicago Tribune -1989)

When I was really young I had a very strange uncle (also called Robert !) who delighted in finding as many ways to scare me witless as he could. One of his favorites was to whisper grim stories into my ear, stories that often related the twisted deeds of a horrible boy-eating creature called simply "the Spiderman". One night he (my uncle ?) actually went so far as to climb in through my bedroom window after the lights had been put out. I screamed for what seemed like days. The "Spiderman" stories ended that night, but my fear of of the dark and spiders persisted for quite some more time.
(thecure.com 1997)


FASCINATION STREET

About what happens to you if you're in a group and you get too much attention. You do too many things like this. And you become obsessed with the idea of yourself.
(Music Box TV -1989)

Is booze and drugs, let’s just say. (Oor Magazine -1989)

I was thinking of Bourbon Street in New Orleans when I wrote it - I was getting ready to go there and I thought : what the fuck do I think I'm going to find ? It's about the incredulity that I could still be fooled into looking for a perfect moment. (Select 1991)

A "generic" song about the (often cynical) delights of exploring a new city night life ; based loosely on one particular "band adventure" in New Orleans 1985 -Bourbon Street the cliché perhaps ; but a lot of life's died there... (thecure.com 1997)


PRAYERS FOR RAIN

A song about futility. (Music Box TV -1989)
About how someone can stop your mouth. (Oor Magazine -1989)


THE SAME DEEP WATER AS YOU (working title : The Same Deep Water As Me)

A frustration you get doing something like this with people always imagining that you're going to be much better than you actually are. And really let down when you do normal human things. It's my reaction. (Music Box TV -1989)

About the expectations people have from you, and how you never can live up to those expectations. (Oor Magazine -1989)


DISINTEGRATION

A rant really. (Music Box TV -1989)
It’s my scream against everything falling apart, and my right to quit with it when I want to. (Oor Magazine -1989)


HOMESICK (working title : The Tale of the Lonely Badge)

Pretty self explanatory as well. That's sort of about being away doing things you don't really want to do, becoming obsessed with being fixated which is what we tend to be more and more with the time I think. (Music Box TV -1989)

About the attraction of forbidden fruits. (Oor Magazine -1989)


UNTITLED

Untitled hasn't got a title because I couldn't figure out what it's about really. It's about the devil futility. (Music Box TV -1989)

About how making an album is an utterly pointless occupation, hahaha !
(Oor Magazine -1989)

A hopeful song in a hopeless world. Knowing that everything's futile but still fighting, still raging against the dying of the light - that's what motivates me all the time.
(Rolling Stone -1989)


BABBLE

Drugs. (Curenews -1993)


OUT OF MIND

Drugs again ! (Curenews -1993)

I at last managed to get lemurs into a lyric, which is something I'd always promised to myself, I'd do as they're my favorite animal ! (Join the dots booklet -2004)


2 LATE

A dream ? (Curenews -1993)


FEAR OF GHOSTS (working title : The Other Side)

Memories. (Curenews -1993)
Isolation, depersonalisation and hopelessness. (Join the dots booklet -2004)




MIXED UP ERA 1990


NEVER ENOUGH

How I'm never satisfied. (Curenews -1993)

The words reflect on my least enjoyable traits - overwhelming dissatisfaction in the face of achievement. (thecure.com 1997)


HAROLD AND JOE

Me pretending to be "me" ? (Curenews -1993)

Harold and Joe were two characters from Neighbours, Harold Bishop and Joe Mangel. I named the demo after them. (Simon Gallup -Join the dots booklet -2004)




WISH ERA 1992


OPEN

Parties. (Curenews -1993)

It's just like when you are in a situation you almost know that you are letting yourself be drawn into, a situation that you know you are ultimately going to regret.
(Manor Studios interview 1992)


HIGH (working title : Anniversary)

Happiness. (Curenews -1993)

A song about Dorothy, a friend's child. She had (has !) a fantastic way with words -"sky as kite" was one of hers ! - and was convinced that she could fly ! Strangely enough (?) I too had held this belief through several of my formative years, and was consequently the only "grown-up" to listen without laughing... (thecure.com 1997)


APART

Watching others. (Curenews -1993)

It's like I'm an observer and I'm not actually involved, I'm not emotionally involved at all in this song. I'm just singing it quite dispassionately, but trying to get involved with the two protagonists in the song and singing each of their point of view.
(Manor Studios interview 1992)


FROM THE EDGE OF THE DEEP GREEN SEA

Drugs again. (Curenews -1993)


WENDY TIME

An incident ! (Curenews -1993)

Wendy Time is this indefinable time. The title it hasn't got very much to do with the song although the idea of Wendy Time is sort of crystallised in my mind as being a certain feeling at a certain moment, like when someone leaves the room and you sort of heave a sigh of relief, but why it's called Wendy Time, only Simon knows and he won't tell us.
(Manor Studios interview 1992)


DOING THE UNSTUCK

Unstuck is about throwing your hands in the air and saying : I'm off. But then again there is a thread running through the Cure that's all about escapism. (Pulse -1992)

Me getting up. (Curenews -1993)


FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE

Happiness. (Curenews -1993)

Written in 15 minutes one sunny friday afternoon outside "The Boat Inn", Oxford, England 1992, in an attempt to escapsulate the delicious feeling that is expectation...
(thecure.com 1997)


TRUST

Trust. (Curenews -1993)


A LETTER TO ELISE

Resignation. (Curenews -1993)

It's inspired by the character of Elisabeth in Cocteau's Les Enfants Terribles. It's not actually
about her, but she somehow got mixed up in my head with another Elise I was trying to write about and to... (Join the dots booklet -2004)

I had hust re-read "Les Enfants Terribles" by Jean Cocteau hence "Elise" and the "letter" was a reference to "a letter to Hermione" by David Bowie... The song is a real "stream of consciousness" piece, and contains many diverse references, a lot of them very personal... The mood is generally resignation in the face of inevitable change. (thecure.com 1997)

The name has overtones for me, a kind of symbolic name. But it isn't actually about someone called Elise. (Manor Studios interview 1992)


CUT (working title : Away)

Hatred. (Curenews -1993)


TO WISH IMPOSSIBLE THINGS

Is specifically about relationships. The notion of Three Wishes, all though history, has this aspect where if you wish for selfish things, it backfires on the third wish. But wishes never seem to take in the notion of wishing for other people, general wishes, or wishes about interacting with other people. In all relationships, there's always aching holes, and that's where the impossible wishes come into it. (Pulse -1992)

But never stop wishing. (Curenews -1993)


END

Me pretending to be "me". (Curenews -1993)

It has elements in there which I suppose I'm addressing the idea that people have of me. It's probably the feeling that people understand when they're put into a position whereby they are liked or loved or thought of and they are almost becoming a caricature of themselves and wish that they could change but they haven't the courage to. So in a sense, it's like being forced into living a lie I suppose. (Manor Studios interview 1992)


THIS TWILIGHT GARDEN

My twilight garden by the sea in summer. (Curenews -1993)

My most quintessentially English song. I'd just moved to the south coast of England and it was the first time I had my own garden. I was trying to capture that feeling of late summer dusk, the colour of the sky, the smell of the grass, the sound of the last bird singing.
(Join the dots booklet -2004)


PLAY

Lies. (Curenews -1993)


HALO

A kiss. (Curenews -1993)
A song about infatuation. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


SCARED AS YOU

Me not pretending to be "me". (Curenews -1993)


THE BIG HAND

Drugs again ! (Curenews -1993)

A strangely upbeat song about the perils of drug addiction. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


A FOOLISH ARRANGEMENT

A dream... (Curenews -1993)


UYEA SOUND

Based around a Porl demo idea - it was called "Old Scotland"... ('Uyea Sound' is a place in Scotland). (Curenews -1995)


CLOUDBERRY

Based around one of my demo ideas - it was called... "Cloudberry" (a Scandinavian liqueur) ! (Curenews -1995)


OFF TO SLEEP

Based around a Simon demo idea - it was called "Off to Sleep" ! (Curenews -1995)


THE THREE SISTERS

Based around a Teddy demo idea - it was called 't3' (the third idea on his home demo tape) - I preferred 'The Three Sisters'. (Curenews -1995)




WILD MOOD SWINGS ERA 1996


WANT

When you experience moments of strong intensity, it is often so floating and so shapeless that it is gone before you can think about it. In a way I'm still striving for those moments, but I think I have learned to accept that it's often meaningless. And that you will not have anymore time to experience anything else than the time that is now. (Pop Magazine -1996)

How I feel sometimes. (Curenews -1997)

It's the closest to how I am most of the time, as I am in the band, this neverending desire for more. (Gaffa -2000)


CLUB AMERICA

I came over to New York in the summer of '94 with Perry, 'cause I wanted to watch the football matches, the World Cup. Depeche Mode were playing. We were going to various places and getting really seriously a lot of attention. I played up to it then an awful lot more than I should have, and on the plane home, I wrote the song, because I was trying to, like, explain it away to myself. It's ironic, you know. I've had this photo taken with these celebrities, and I was there, and I did that, and I was full of self loathing! And that song is not anti-the girl in the "canary feather dress," it's actually anti-me because I was part of it. (The Big Takeover -1996)

Being on tour / any night out ! (Curenews -1997)


THIS IS A LIE

It is something that I feel strongly since I don't think it can be any other way. It is like that. No one can be sure. But you can't walk around thinking about it either, you would become insane. That very text is the only one I had to defend in front of Mary, the only one that made her upset. What "why each of us must lose everyone else in the world"? What do you mean?'" (Pop Magazine -1996)

That particular song came out of the ongoing discussion in the band about various ways to live, monogamy and so on. Within the group, there's a point of view that it's much more satisfying to have several relationships and within those, give and take what you want and what they want. I represent the other extreme, because I'm with one person. So in effect, those particular lyrics aren't my point of view. I'm talking from the perspective of other people to broaden my writing. It's the first thing I've written that Mary came and asked what I meant by it. She's always given me a huge amount of leeway, creatively speaking... but because it was so anti-monogamy, she came up and said : "is this what you really think?"' It was much worse before. The original lyric actually had as its final line : "travel a long road... in chains". (Vox -1996)

An argument about 'love' / a poem. (Curenews -1997)


THE 13th

A club in Italy / a book about 'vipers' and 'the buzz'. (Curenews -1997)

We had a Saturday night off during a trip to Rio in 1995, and decided that one of us should enter a local night-club talent show ; I drew the short straw, and to my eternal shame played and sang "Copacabana"... It was unplaced ! (thecure.com 1997)


STRANGE ATTRACTION

Chaos theory / true life / a dream. (Curenews -1997)

A song using the language of "Chaos theory" to tell a story of miscommunication... I have often endured whole correspondances as a non-participant, my answers are often, unknowingly, contained in my songwords. (thecure.com 1997)


MINT CAR

Summer trips. (Curenews -1997)

Expectation and happiness. The title is "Cure speak" for "fast trip". (thecure.com 1997)

It's a Simon song. Sometimes he says he's happy as he was getting a brand new car, a mint car. It's the idea of being with friends in a car and going somewhere.
(Europe 2 radio -2001)


JUPITER CRASH

The comet crash / true life / a dream. (Curenews -1997)

About the comet crash a couple of years ago. As an analogy for a failed sexual encounter. And how you kind of build people up. Everyone expected the comet kind of hit Jupiter and Jupiter was gonna explode. Unless you have a pretty powerful telescope, you couldn't see anything at all. That sort of sense, there's a big build up and the next day, people were saying "That was rubbish". It wasn't rubbish, it was incredible. It wasn't what you expected. That was the analogy. (MTV EUROPE interview 1996)


ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND

The group. (Curenews -1997)


GONE!

How I feel sometimes. (Curenews -1997)

I was trying to reflect the "get up and go" mentality that I am so well known for... (thecure.com 1997)


NUMB

Kurt Cobain / other suicides... (Curenews -1997)


RETURN

Being on tour / true life / a dream. (Curenews -1997)


TRAP

How I feel sometimes. (Curenews -1997)


TREASURE

A poem by Christina Rossetti. (Curenews -1997)


BARE

How I feel sometimes. (Curenews -1997)


IT USED TO BE ME

The group's history... one of my parts. (Curenews -1997)

It Used To Be Me started out as a jam. I'm on bass on this track, one of the few cure songs that shows off my thick string stuff ! (Join the dots booklet -2004)


OCEAN

How I feel sometimes. (Curenews -1997)

Another sad song about someone I loved a lot who I knew was slipping away.
(Join the dots booklet -2004)


ADONAIS

A poem / a dream / sort of written with Brandon Lee, the Crow in mind. (Curenews -1997)

I wrote it while I was on holiday in the Lake District, words and music all in one go.
(Join the dots booklet -2004)


HOME

How I feel sometimes. (Curenews -1997)

I called it Home because I'd gone back to my Mum and Dad's, Robert kept the title, but he turned it into a lovesong. (Simon Gallup, Join the dots booklet -2004)


WAITING

Being on tour / on a balcony in America. (Curenews -1997)

The words were inspired by a very vivid and persitent dream I had on tour of the room I grew up in at my Mum and Dad's. I was very homesick and very tired, and the images stayed with me for a very long time. (Join the dots booklet -2004)


A PINK DREAM

A South American trip / a dream. (Curenews -1997)

It was actually started in Alaska, where I'd stopped over on a flight to Australia in 1983. 13 years later we were in Rio, and I had a very weird extended déjà vu experience...
(Join the dots booklet -2004)


WRONG NUMBER

Part of it is about... I always found it funny, the idea of colours being in fashion or out fashion. And lime green and tangerine... I can remember my older sister wearing it. I'm old enough to remember the late sixties. And it was such a horrific combination and people were wearing it in summer... lime green and tangerine. And people believe they can, like, look good and fashionable if they wear the right colours. The other part is a phonecall I got when I was in America in summer for a couple of shows. But it's not that important really...
(Modern Rock Live radio -1997)




BLOODFLOWERS ERA 2000


OUT OF THIS WORLD

About me ending the band. But also resonates on a different level and alludes more to a general sense of letting things go. (Pulse -2000)

I was just trying to get that sense that I often have which is a kind of curse that whenever I'm enjoying something I'm always thinking that it's gonna end... (JJJ radio -2000)


WATCHING ME FALL (working title : Fall)

It's everything I feel about what I've done in the group. It's a narrative song of my life in the Cure and it's huge. It starts little but ends up being massive. (Spin online -1998)

Watching Me Fall is very much 'Open' Part II…. My home demo version is actually twenty minutes and I slashed it in half ! I did it as kind of my 'Seven Ages of Man' (laughs) but unfortunately it ended up sounding a bit like Meat Loaf ! I thought that the scope was a bit too grand - it was supposed to encompass my entire career. In the end I just focused it down to one night, I thought that was long enough. (Rip It Up -2000)

In the opening line, 'I have been watching me fall, for what seems like years' that pertains to one particular instance which happened to me a long, long time ago. I used some of the imagery of how I remembered it. It was also taken from an article I read about the drug Rohipnol and date rape. I used to take Rohipnol always on planes. It would make me not really care if we fell out of the sky. It removed any anxiety. It helped me overcome, not quite a phobia, but I was incredibly loath to get on a plane for seven years. It helped me break through that barrier. I found the outcry that surrounded Rohipnol was a lot of it rubbish basically. The senses that I experienced were not like that. Not that I was ever date raped, but the images that they used were quite powerful, the testimony of the women involved. I used some of that and wove it in with this particular experience, then tried to marry to the idea of what I sometimes perceive as my own decline over the years since Disintegration. I tried to put myself in context to how I felt then and how I feel now.
(Atomic Pop Online -2000)


WHERE THE BIRDS ALWAYS SING

Part of Ian Banks's The Crow Road dealt with themes that are also in "The Birds Always Sing." (Barnes & Nobles -2000)

Arose out of a discussion with someone who was experiencing a series of extremely terrible events, and who honestly believed, due to a religious upbringing that somehow they'd done something to deserve this. I got really upset about that, and wrote the words out of my belief that things just happen because they happen. There's no great force at work, there's no great master plan, there's nothing. (Pulse -2000)


MAYBE SOMEDAY

The only song on the album that's really about the end of the band. It's the only one that's about how the others react to me saying :"this is it", and they don't believe me 'cause whenever I say "never", it means "maybe". So it's just that. It's also about the reaction, as I was saying earlier, that we've been getting. There's a part of me that thinks : "well, how could I possibly want to stop doing this, because it's a fantastic thing to do", and Maybe Someday' is that in a song. (MTV online -2000)


THE LOUDEST SOUND

About my biggest fear about the future : it was inspired by staring an old couple walking along the beach in front of my house. (RockStar -2000)


THERE IS NO IF

There is no way out -everything goes wrong and then you die. (Pulse -2000)


39

I wrote that song on my birthday, just before entering the studio. I had the words of all songs then, except the one that fitted with the melody of what would become '39'. I had decided not to celebrate my birthday, so I was just sitting in the garden with Mary, and I thought about all the years that had passed and about how time flies by... and I became totally depressed. I figured, looking back, that I hadn't reached what I wanted...
(Humo -2000)

'39' is not a statement that I'm giving up. I'm just being open and honest about the fact that what's driven me to express myself in the past is just not there like it used to be. That's neither a good nor a bad thing, it's just a fact. (Pulse -2000)


BLOODFLOWERS

I read a book of letters of the painter Edvard Munch. He said that he was sure that he had done a good artwork when he felt that a blood flower popped out from his heart. I thought this image was very romantic. As a coincidence, about the same time, i was reading a poetry book about World War I, and one of the poems described how a wound in one of the soldiers, hit by a bullet, opened a blood flower in his body. I liked this analogy, between pain and art - these two images. (Folha de Sao Paulo -2000)

The image of flowers dying was something I used because it was such an obvious metaphor. (Pulse -2000)


CUT HERE

It's about Billy MacKenzie, once the singer of The Associates. Two months before The Cure his band was contracted by our record company Fiction. I knew him since 1978. We appeared on stage together and I took part at his records. He was a very good friend. In 1996 he figured in our Mint car video and we made an appointment to see each other soon. The next thing I heard he had killed himself. I was overwhelmed with a mix of emotions: anger, feeling of guilt and sadness. I wrote this song at that time, but I found it too personal to put it on a regular cd. I could have changed the text into less strong words, like I did before with such songs, but I still couldn't find it in my heart to do it.
(Het Algemeen Dagblad -2001)

This song is about Billy MacKenzie who was singing in The Associates. He was with us for the 'Mint Car' video. We were having a drink at a table and were supposed to meet the week after to have a drink together. Then he left and Billy's family announced to me that he'd killed himself. Of course I had different feelings, as anyone would have when a friend commits suicide, anger, culpability, and obviously sadness. I'm happy this single means something to me, 'cos most of the time, singles are just made for radio.
(Europe 2 radio -2001)


JUST SAY YES

A rallying cry for the silent "just say yes" majority, because I was as ever sick to death of the dismal "just say no" lot. (Join the dots booklet -2004)




THE CURE ERA 2004


LOST (working title : Back On)

It’s a song with three meanings. The most immediate one talks about how much it is difficult to recognize oneself inside a couple relationship. It’s the moment in which you have found someone, but you also "lost" yourself. Having a relationship means giving in to compromises and forgetting part of your own identity. The second issue regards me personally: sometimes I ask myself whether I lost myself because I can’t recognize what surrounds me and whether this is the right place for me and if it is, where I am. I often think that I have lost touch with what I do. And the last of the three meanings is asking yourself if this life made us wiser or if it just toyed with us. (Rolling Stone -2004)

It was inspired to me by The View From Nowhere, a book by Thomas Nagel. The search for oneself, it's an old philosophical question. I wrote those words in my office. On the wall, there's a picture of me when I was 12. I was looking at the photograph for a long time, trying to remember my state of mind at that time. I'd physically recognize me but couldn't figure out the child I was. It looks like I'm very happy on the picture but I can't remember that moment. (Télémoustique -2004)

I just had this realisation that you never are yourself, because you're always becoming yourself with every experience, however trivial. The idea of the fluidity of self, and of you having no concrete identity, is a very disorientating place to find yourself in. It's like self-awareness without the sense of self. It's horrible, like finding there's a vacuum at the center of your being. (Uncut -2004)


LABYRINTH

The idea of a labyrinth just appealed to me, as a visual image, kind of working your way through knowing there's only one way out which is kind of the positive side of the song, as opposed to a maze where there's a series of dead ends. But a labyrinth is actually much easier than a maze... (XFM radio -2004)


BEFORE THREE

It's the memories I hold. There are still key moments in my life and however old I get they're always gonna be there. They're like the touchstones for me, of how good things can be, and how bad things can be. (XFM radio -2004)


THE END OF THE WORLD

The theme that runs through this is the ability of one person to completely destroy someone else's world, with just a word. And it's not necessarily a good thing. (XFM radio -2004)


ANNIVERSARY

I went for a semi-operatic bit because that's the way the song made me feel. The idea of having anniversaries is a human construct and it's nice. It kind of holds life together, but there's also a dark side to it as you get older. (XFM radio -2004)


US OR THEM

I really felt I had to write something about this insistent message that's being put forward at all levels of the media about how I am supposed to live, as an individual, in fear.
(XFM radio -2004)

It's really aimed at Western media and their "everything is black or white". The simplification, the dumbing down of culture. I just feel that for the last few years, it's almost like the tapes are running backwards. I feel like I'm 5 years old : 'these are the bad guys and these are the good guys'. And the world isn't like that. (Telehit -2004)


alt.end

It was about, kind of, giving up on the idea of new experience and that is actually a bad thing to do, thinking : 'What's the point ? I've seen it, I've done this before'.
(XFM radio -2004)


(I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING) ON

You kind of get... immersed with someone and it's like it's getting too much, it's overwhelming. It's that feeling of not quite being able to let go. (XFM radio -2004)


TAKING OFF

This is the happiest song I've written since "Friday I'm In Love". That's kind of it really. It's entirely the feeling of 'Shall I take this next step ? (XFM radio -2004)


NEVER

It is pretty dismal if you just hear the music, it's a slamming piece of music but it's essentially about how you're stuck with someone and however hard you try you're never going to connect with that person. (XFM radio -2004)


THE PROMISE

This is like one of the songs  already. You just know, when you play this song live, it's a really great feeling. And it allows me to indulge in my Jimi Hendrix fantasies.
(XFM radio -2004)


GOING NOWHERE

It's very unusual because normally I don't write the words and the music together, but in the summer of 2002 I was sitting outside at home, I sat down with a guitar and I played it and I sang it and that was it. (XFM radio -2004)


A BOY I NEVER KNEW

The bond between parent and child is something I'll only experience one way, and it seems to transcend pretty much everything. Every animal would rather die themselves than lose their offspring. But it's just genes, isn't it? All of our existence is spent worrying about the next generation, but we don't actually seem to get anywhere. It's me worrying about that, really. (The Guardian -2011)




4:13 DREAM ERA 2008


THE REASONS WHY
I knew the person who sent me the letter. It was a genuine suicide. They would be my age. (NME -2008)


SIRENSONG

An acoustic waltz with slide guitar. (NME -2008)