The Cure’s Melancholy Return
By Alex McFerren
“This is the end of every song we sing.”
A powerful and brutal opening line from ‘Alone’, the first track of the new Cure album. It sets the mood for what is The Cure’s first new album in 14 years – sombre and melancholic – but it sounding good, nonetheless. ‘Alone’ ends the same way as it starts, using the same line only adding the word and title, ‘Alone’. You can tell immediately that Robert Smith’s songwriting is as beautiful as ever. ‘And Nothing Is Forever’ begins with an almost classical sounding instrumental, with some neat guitar work that only adds to its ambience. The lyrics detail a man desperate for his partner to never go away but is slowly coming to accept that “My world is growing old” and “Nothing is forever”. A bittersweet ballad for fading lovers if there ever was one. We are then treated to a heavier sounding track, ‘A Fragile Thing’, a tale of a man yearning for the love of someone lost to him. “Don’t tell me how you miss me, I could die tonight of a broken heart” – a truly profound and passionate line, a line that anyone who has been through a difficult romance could relate to. It reads just like a Shakespearian play, the loss of love and a struggle to cope without it. Pure poetry.
‘Warsong’ is next, starting with a droning solo and heavy riff that makes you feel like you are in the middle of a war. The lyrics detail a broken relationship: “For bitter ends we tear the night in two” and “We tell each other lies to hide the truth”. It’s a sad story of a declining love affair, the soundtrack to a war between lovers. Starting with a catchy riff, ‘Drone:Nodrone’ is the cry of a man who is lost in life, questioning himself and his own reality. Lines like “Staring down the barrel of the same warm gun” and “Yeah, I’m pretty much done” encapsulate this feeling of giving up and losing yourself. The sorrowful mood of the album continues with ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’, the story of a man losing his brother: “Something wicked this way comes to steal my brother’s life”. It’s a mournful tale of a man struggling to come to terms with the loss of his brother, a truly compassionate song about family and dealing with loss. Not to mention the beautifully constructed solo in the middle of the song, magic to the listener’s ears. The penultimate track, ‘All I Ever Am’, recounts a man’s failed attempts at love and life, and how all he has ever done is reflect on the bad times in life, for instance the line “I lose my life like this reflecting time and memories.” It all certainly adds to the melancholic mood of the album. ‘Endsong’ – the 10-minute-long outro to the album – is certainly a lot to take at once. Another masterfully inserted instrumental intro leads into banging drums and the guitar blissfully soaring into the ears of the listener. It is not just the end of the album, it is also the end of the story for the man who has been through heartbreaks and death and loss: “I’m outside in the dark wondering how I got so old, It’s all gone […] Left alone with nothing, nothing, nothing.”
Songs From The Lost World ends as it starts, melancholic and miserable, and that is no insult as The Cure make it sound like a beautiful story being read to the listener in music form. 45 years on from their first album and 14 years since their last, the band have still got it from start to finish. A true work of art in the modern music world, stands out above the rest.
