Now is the time to make sure you’ve nailed down your favourite song by The Cure. Their long-awaited new record Songs Of A Lost World is out soon and people are going to be talking about it and your favourite Cure song is exactly the sort of thing that could crop up in conversation. Don’t get caught short – have one ready to go. For me, it’s their moody epic Burn from The Crow soundtrack. Can’t be beaten. But the best thing about The Cure is that there are many different iterations of the band to draw on. Everyone’s right.
Take Natural Born Killers, Cape Fear and Yellowjackets actress and singer Juliette Lewis, who told this writer about her go-to pick when it came to Robert Smith’s band of un-merry men. She opted for the title track from their sprawling 1989 album Disintegration. “I would always play this album in my car, but the song Disintegration spoke to me because it had that depth of despair and anguish and it was so deeply personal,” Lewis recalled. “I knew nothing of Robert’s personal life, but you could only guess what it was cos it’s all in the fucking song! Fascination Street was the single and it drew me into the album, I bought it and I just loved how this song was charging ahead. It felt like he went through all he was describing in the track but then he’s able to uplift and move past it, because of the music and the drive in it. It’s such a driving song.”
At the time, Lewis said, she was living in Los Angeles and she’d just finished filming Oliver Stone’s controversial Natural Born Killers. “I’d gone through my own personal tornado so it was a track that spoke to me and that I needed, and I feel that’s what a lot of The Cure’s music is,” she reflected. “It’s not just easy fun pop listening, I feel like it’s a band you need. There’s such a poetry and depth of meaning to this song. “Through the glass of the roof/Through the roof of your mouth/Through the mouth of your eye/Through the eye of the needle/It’s easier for me to get closer to Heaven/Than ever feel whole again…” – now I’m geeking out! Whole body with chills, all that shit spoke to me and I was just so thankful forever for all things Cure, but particularly this song. At that time in my life, I needed it.”
Listen to Juliette's favourite Cure song below:
