"Sticky as Lips and Licky as Trips"
I was one of those Cure weirdos in high school who thought that Robert Smith was the bard of young solitude for using words like “treachery” and “duplicity” as many times as possible within the same song. Under a canopy of glow-n-the-dark stars, I listened to Disintegration and my 9th grade soul floated from the bed merging with Robert’s wild, mopey howls. I was forever changed.
It’s been over a decade since I faithfully scribbled the lyrics to each and every Cure song in my notebook; the task took up many Friday nights of my freshman and sophomore years. While I still hold a special place in my heart for Robert’s lipstick-smeared laments, I’ve put away the B-sides, posters, and other dark and gloomy trinkets of my miserable past while indulging in the occasional listen to The Top or Head on the Door.
And then I listened to their new song. It’s reminiscent of the giddy pop songs off of Wish or even Wild Mood Swings and I am grateful that Bob and company have moved away from those seemingly endless dirges that bogged down their last few efforts. But the lyrics are still stunted and read like the poetry I wrote when I was 16 and listening to, hah, The Cure.
I’d rather remember how I viewed them when I still thought that misery was the heartbreak of a man-child in kohl eyeliner sitting alone in a dark room and writing music for the fragile hearts of teenage girls sitting alone in their dark bedrooms. Now I know that real anguish and heartbreak is a lot less romantic and a lot more lame.
The Cure at their absolute best: