Beautiful angst: The Cure

by 5:4

Back when life was all of a teenage, when the concept of “family” still held some substance for me, i was taken to spend a few days in the company of my “cousins” in London. There wasn’t much to do there, and i recall one particular day when i and “cousin-minor” were mooching in his room, reading, chatting, random stuff (mum, “aunt” and “cousin-major” were out, probably). All day, over and over, he played a single album, the music of which, at first, really chafed my ears (songs about arabs?). But as the hours trudged, i found myself listening more and more to the songs, looking forward to some, continuing to be irritated by others (enough with the arabs!), and i found myself really drawn to what this music – now fluffy and boistrous, now dark and brooding, filled with melancholy – could be.

The clues are there for sharp-witted readers: and i was to learn that this was The Cure, whose music i had hitherto only ever heard occasionally on the radio or in tapes swapped with friends. The album was Staring at the Sea, the compilation of all their earliest singles (and it was “Killing An Arab” that kept bugging me). It would be pushing it to say that this experience began a love affair with The Cure’s music; with virtually every other band (like every girl i’ve fallen for), this is what would have ensued (hmm, now there’s something to explore: how my relationships with different musics are similar to my relationships with the women i’ve loved). But it didn’t happen, and i still don’t know why; all i can think of is that i found something off-putting in the way their songs are so dichotomous, either incredibly up-beat and delirious, all popcorn and laughter (irritating) or deliciously dark and mellow, all velvet and bedrooms (wonderful). Perhaps i felt this to be too much at odds with how i felt within myself (hmm, now there’s something to explore: how my relationships with different musics relate to how i see myself), although it is actually rather like how i was in those ghastly 80s. More likely, i felt the darkest songs were so powerful, so true to what i thought and felt and knew, that i couldn’t stand to hear them do anything that seemed to go against that. Strangely, i have only ever acquired a single album by The Cure, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, and my ambivalence remains. For me, it is stopped from being one of the finest albums of all time by the (dareisayit) “happy” songs that crop up at intervals; aside from those, it contains some of the most mesmerisingly beautiful songs i’ve ever heard, and which continue to move me as much as ever; “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep” is perhaps the most gorgeous song ever, while in “One More Time”, Robert Smith’s heart-breaking singing still brings tears to my eyes.


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