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While always a exhilaratingly-energetic track in the nigh-inevitable end-concert medley, the song exhibits far more than dance sensibility. Not a lot more, but enough. Consider the lyric: “Waiting for the telephone to ring / And I’m wondering / Where she’s been / And I’m crying for yesterday / And the tap drips / drip drip drip [etc].” Culminating with “It’s always the same,” this song presents the themes of monotony and romantic disquiet that will color the majority of The Cure’s future work. The juxtaposition of these lyrics against the swinging backdrop also hints at the direction of The Cure’s later bipolar pop singles. The song is, indeed, a prototype for the band to come.

According to Jeff Apter, the song is almost straight biography – chronicling a night spent drinking homebrew, watching the tap drip, and feeling miserable. This intrigues me, as much of Robert’s later work will involve explorations of other personalities and situations – leaving behind straightforward, unambiguous biography. What intrigues me about this is that a great many later-period songs will involve themes of lost identity and alienation. This song provides, in a partial way, a reference point for charting the narrative progress of Robert Smith. (Well, maybe, anyway…)

And there we are. A micro-entry for a micro-song.

For your consideration, I present you the video found on Staring at the Sea: The Images, and a later, live clip. All compliments of the mighty YouTube.

Of course, you could argue that the most surprising thing about the record is that – given all of these changes and upheavals – it’s actually solid. The tunes themselves are catchy and sophisticated, and the energetic performances are stunning. After the emotional drain of Bloodflowers, it’s encouraging to see The Cure moving full-steam ahead. Which is not to say that the album is without fault. One might argue that the innovations in both music and production are offset by lyrics that, at times, are a bit of a retread. We’re not breaking new poetic or lyrical ground with this album. (Indeed, we seem to be tracing a pretty small circle around the themes of love and heartbreak.) Still, I see reason for encouragement. It’s my hope, and perhaps a foolish one, that the reinstatement of Porl, along with the musical gains from The Cure, will lead to an exciting, engaging new (double!) album. I suppose one might only have to look as far as “Your God Is Fear” to see evidence of this, given Porl’s assistance with that track. (It sounds like a brawny version of a Wish-era b-side, doesn’t it?) As a side point, I suspect that, had I thought of it earlier, this song would have made me rethink my harsh judgments of the recent fate of “Killing An Arab.” Well, partly, anyway.

“Before Three,” then. As I’ve said about the album generally, I find tracks like this one rather catchy. The vocal is confident and energetic, and the music grooves in that summer-radio way. However, I’m afraid I must say that I find the lyrics a bit familiar – perhaps this is simply fatigue brought on by the commonness of the theme? What stands out, of course, is that “up next to you / so fucked and high” lyric. Not that this is the first time that Robert has sworn in song, but, for me, it’s the first time that it feels extraneous. Perhaps this is the consequence of working with a big “nu metal” producer? Hm.

In any case, what really intrigues me in this track is the verse: “And every summer’s sun / I want again / And every winter’s moon / I want the same / My happiest day / My happiest night / Always next to you / And held deep inside / It keeps me alive…” These lyrics present me with two impressions: 1) we finally have a reason for the recursive circles this album traces, and 2) we have a reason for the album being as experimental as it is. The former is easy enough to work out, if we take these lyrics as coming from a place of biography. Our narrator has found what works, and what makes him feel alive, and he’s simply struggling to never move on. An interesting narrative advancement, I think, for an album that begins with “I can’t find myself.” I see my second reason as being intricately tied to this, inasmuch as the “golden years” of The Cure were ones in which each album brought a giant thematic (and often musical) leap away from the preceding one. This drive to create, and explore, new ground was part of what made The Cure so exciting – and it would seem that Robert is afraid that this is starting to fade out. (Consider the recent comments about “writer’s block,” on this point.)

I would argue that this isn’t the case, but that the old boy simply needs to remember himself. Musical innovation is one thing – but part of the excitement of those musical innovations was that they accompanied new poetry. Personally, I’ll take familiar music with new, visceral poetry over bland poetry and radical musical departures. I’ve always been a lyrics guy, I guess. In any case, I suppose we shall see how it all turns out come October. (Or thereabouts!) Until then, I am now armed with my flak-jacket, in case stalwart allies of The Cure come to find me.

Inasmuch as it melds The Cure’s newfound pop sensibilities with Robert’s marvelous emotional pastiche, “The Caterpillar” (indeed, The Top, as well) represents a real artistic turning point for the band. And just as with later songs like “Inbetween Days,” this song effectively blends ebullient music with lyrics that straddle the divide between comedy and tragedy. A hallmark of their later style, if ever there was one. Yes, I know, I know, it’s the “flicka flick flicka!” song. Even so, two lyrics give us reason to consider the presence of ambiguity. They are “The day I stop / is the day you change / And fly away from me” and “Your flames / The flames that kiss me dead.” Of course, by way of arranging the final piece of this puzzle, one must also consider the lyric: “Flowing in / And filling up my hopeless heart.”

Ultimately, I feel that this song suggests a sense of hope. Yet, as with most of Robert’s more effusive works (“Just Like Heaven,” being a good example), the promise of change, and being made whole, is only realized in the departure of the Caterpillar Girl. And with the narrator being kissed “dead” – annihilated, in a sense. A particularly visceral description of a positive emotional transformation, don’t you think? What’s more, one has to consider the first of the quoted lyrics with respect to the conflict: “The day I stop…” is in direct emotional conflict with “The day you change.” While our narrator may want his “hopeless heart” to be saved, he knows he must lose the girl to make this possible. As such, the Caterpillar Girl will come and dust those lemon lies, and glow inside his head, but then she’s gone – changed into something more beautiful by virtue of her actions. And our narrator? Alone, alone… (well, you know the rest). This conflict between desire and longing, rightness and pleasure, will feature in many later tracks (“All I Want” and “A Night Like This” coming to mind). And it’s fair to say that this song is archetypal Cure inasmuch as it speaks of love that can only be realized for the briefest of moments – bringing both fulfillment and longing.

Still, for all this, it remains – musically speaking – a whimsical wisp of a thing. Have a listen.

It is impossible to deny that the track is a complicated melange of half-defined, inwardly-expressed metaphors. Even so, “The Figurehead” represents an argument for the desire of self-annihilation. We are told that there are “too many secrets / too many lies,” and that the days are “heavier and weighted.” Indeed, this theme of dread, this “despair of time,” carries over as we’re told that the narrator has “laughed in the mirror for the first time in a year.” Set against the passing of time, is a dichotomy of purity and impurity. We are told that the narrator is blinded “with your purity,” and that he will “never be clean again.” This metaphor of impurity is culminated in the image of figurines with spiders inside – these being akin to the narrator who is, himself, like “an old painted doll in the throes of dance.” The dance, we presume, is the wobbling brought on by the imminent release of the spiders. The spiders have been placed there, we can conclude, by the ravages of time. As each moment passes, our narrator becomes less and less human – driven to a stained ruin by the nature of what impels him on. (Echoes of “In Your House,” perhaps?)

In addition to these grim figures, it’s worth examining the album’s overall treatment of the subject of routine. At many points, as we see in “The Figurehead,” the narrator ceases to find pleasure and purpose in his actions: “I can lose myself in Chinese art and American girls.” This line delivered with a blunt disinterest – the women and art distinguished only by national identities – broad categories being the only thing left to a mind that has withdrawn. Of course, the bleakness of the lyric “It doesn’t matter if we all die” in “One Hundred Years” molds this theme until it is almost entirely despair. And this verse from “A Short Term Effect” perhaps best for distilling the overall mood: “A day without substance / A change of thought / An atmosphere that rots with time / Colours that flicker in water / A short term effect.” All the shows of the world will pass, and each time they’re less bright – until they finally wind down to nothing.

And all of this is set across a dramatic musical background of relentless drum and bass lines topped by metal-edged guitar sounds. The whole track smacks of a cold, mechanical existence. This, combined with the narrator’s insistence that his “heart explodes” as his “memory [is] in a fire,” and it’s easy to understand why this was the “feel good” hit of 1982. In all seriousness, it paints a bleak future for our protagonist – one that is backed up by the savagery of tracks like “One Hundred Years” and “The Hanging Garden.” Commercially, the album was a top ten in the UK, but met with very unfriendly critical responses. There were no singles, except for a limited edition EP that contained “The Hanging Garden,” “One Hundred Years,” and two live tracks. Intensified by the departure of Simon at the ensuing tour’s conclusion, this was indeed a very bleak period for The Cure.

Indeed, perhaps the brightest thing that comes from this period is knowing that the band is still with us. While the album is a stunning achievement, it must have been a terrifying one for those who (unlike me) were fans during the early eighties. Hearing these tracks for the first time on the Dream Tour (having not heard them on the Swing Tour), I couldn’t help but be overcome by the sad sense of things winding down – of that final, entropic gasp. I can only imagine the despair of fans who felt their favorite band was slipping away… nor, for that matter, the enormous confusion when “Let’s Go To Bed” emerged at the end of 1982. But that’s for another entry…