Today, April 21 Robert Smith, leader of The Cure turns 65 years old. After celebrating its 40th anniversary in Hyde Park last 2018 and two tours in 2019 and 2022, we are still waiting for that announced new album that is taking more than necessary. That Songs Of The Lost World which has been preceded by the presentation of some of his songs: “Alone”, “Endsong”, “I Could Never Say Goodbye”, “And Nothing Is Forever” and “A Fragile Thing” in which was his recent tour. Some songs that take us back to his most introspective albums.
We want to congratulate you by recovering a recurring theme of your compositions, the passage of time. From a very young age there has been an obsession of the musician with the weight of the years and the futility of life. There have been albums of The Cure clearly influenced by the transition from their twenties to their thirties (Disintegration) or from thirties to forties (Bloodflowers). But this is not exclusive to these stages, many of his albums delve into that nihilistic conception that we are going to remember in a special playlist.
The Cure songs about the passage of time
Winter
According to a reader, this could be a good inclusion on the list. One of the first songs in her repertoire, recorded in 1978 and which ended up being left out of her debut, is “Winter” in which she already told us at only 19 years old that “The soul lives forever, it always ends sometime.”
Seventeen Seconds
The second album of The Cure It was titled after the name of this song. In which they told us about how time secretly disappeared and how those seventeen seconds became a measure of life. All of this wrapped in an evocative packaging that, almost 40 years after its publication, still sounds timeless.
Primary
Already from their first albums Smith He showed that the passage of time was usually present in his songs. He was barely a beardless guy at that time but he was already writing phrases as lapidary as the chorus of this song. “As we advance and get older, “We know more, but we demonstrate less.”. How are you staying?
100 Years
One of the dark totems of The Cure opened Pornography (1982). A distressing and twisted theme that even today, 37 years after its publication, continues to be a fixture in their live shows. A song that closed with the lapidary affirmation “Again and again we die, one after another…” . Total good vibes.
sinking
Robert Smith composed the closing of The Head On The Door (1985) when he was barely 25 years old and he was already telling us things like “I’m calming down as the years go by, I’m sinking” a graphic description of what the passage of time is like in a grandiose piece presided over by an omnipresent bass.
A Thousand Hours
This beautiful song included in Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987) talked about the passage of time and the hours spent each day that were necessary to feel the heart for a second. Without a doubt one of the hidden gems in her repertoire.
To The Sky
One of those rarities in their discography that still has the quality of many of the title songs. This piece, recorded in the sessions of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987) and incredibly discarded, speaks of the longing for yesterday. The nostalgia of remembering childhood and «Breathe under the azure blue sun of the memories of other times».
Closedown
Disintegration (1989) is considered the creative peak of The Cure. A round and timeless album that continues to transmit the same sensations as when it was released. An album that was conceived under the shock of Smith move into your thirties. In some of his songs you can perceive that nostalgia, here represented in this one with the opening: “I’m running out of time…I’m out of time, closing”.
39
Yeah Disintegration It narrated the passage from twenty to thirty, Bloodflowers (2000) did the same with the quarantine. Proof of this was this “39” where he told us that “The fire is almost out and there is nothing left to burn.”.
Underneath The Stars
«We have been here floating under burning stars for 13 million years and everything that has passed (…) and everything that is to come, is nothing to us» That’s how thoughtful he is Smith in his latest published compositions (this song is from 2008).
alone
The Cure’s next album will not be an exception and although we still do not know it completely, we have been able to enjoy some of its songs. The one in charge of opening his recent concerts is an ode that reinforces the idea we are dealing with. That nostalgia for the past that will not return with passages like «This is the end of every song we sing. The fire was reduced to ashes and the stars were darkened with tears. The ghosts of everything we have been.
