Oh, how we despised this song. It came out and it was for us the end of it all. "The Cure going happy", the Goths shrieked in shock, overlooking the history of the band and unable to see beyond Disintegration's quite profitable miserabilism. Because, we would understand, this song is, first of all, what you would call a perfect pop single: it is not only accesible and catchy, but also, like all good singles, it sums up a band's sound. In one way, with time's distance on my side, I can say this was The Cure at their commercial best. The look that would influence millions all over the world, the childish simplicity combined with the queerest masquerade. All great poets go back to nursery rhymes at one stage or another (think of Auden, for example) and this is Smith's most clear attempt to become widely mainstream by going back to the simplest structures. Porl Thompson's creative multitasking for the band -guitar, sax, keyboards, album artwork- summarized in his trademark crouching came to a high point in this single from their higher-charting album of their career. There was no way a song like, say, The Drowning Man would achieve, commercially, what this song did. "This is why I hate you," hardcore Cure fans said at the time. But, fourteen years -fourteen!- later, one has to accept his guilty pleasures and realize that there are days that, unavoidably, make us feel in a Friday I'm in Love mood. Boy, am I getting old...
2 comments:
I was just a child when I heared this song for the first time and I loved it. Forteen years later, I still love it. Don't despise happiness ;)
Kisses from Spain
Perfectly expressed. When some friends and I went to The Cure concert in Dallas--for God's sake--back in 1989-90 or so, we pushed our way from the cheap seats to the front row just before the show started. As the lights came down and the music started up, and before security could begin shoving back the rabble, Robert shambled onto the stage smiling in utter, amazed, childlike pleasure, as if to say, "look at all these people come to play."
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