Juliette Lewis on the best song by The Cure: “This person is ripping his soul out”
While many musicians tend to find themselves entertaining the world of acting at some point in their careers, Juliette Lewis experienced a different twist of fate. While gaining popularity in films like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, she found her calling when listening to her musical instincts, embellishing the doors that opened when she listened to some of her most cherished acts.
Juliette and the Licks formed in 2003 as a result of Lewis’ insatiable itch for music. After feeling somewhat “complacent” in the film industry”, she “needed” to follow the musical path instead, explaining that she “wanted […] a future that allowed me to make records”. As a result, she enjoyed success with hits like ‘You’re Speaking My Language’ and ‘Hot Kiss’, alongside crossing paths with Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl.
Listening to songs like ‘Got Love to Kill’, it wouldn’t be such a stretch to suggest that Lewis admires The Cure – using her voice to emulate dark undertones while suggestively implying playfulness, Lewis often knowingly appeals to the Robert Smith lover in all of us. Of course, the Licks’ music ventures much more into the territory of feminist punk than the gothic dark wave, but the influence is very much present nonetheless.
While most people try to forge edginess by claiming any album other than Disintegration to be their favourite, Lewis doesn’t care much for pretence. In fact, in her view, this album is one of the greatest of all time, mostly due to Smith’s ability to craft poetic lyrics and mould them perfectly into the band’s overarching post-punk sensibilities.
The title track falls perfectly in line with Lewis’ fixation with “guttural purging songs”, as she calls it, while Smith bares all in the lyrics. He’s “ripping his soul out,” Lewis told Pitchfork, and she’s right. Who else could sing the words “through the eye of the needle, it’s easier for me to get closer to Heaven than ever feel whole again” and make it sound like an ode to love?
While it’s probably easy to be lulled into a false sense of security with the song’s ambient arrangements, Smith doesn’t mince his words, instead opting for brutal rawness and authenticity. Even as he sings the words “now that I know that I’m breaking to pieces, I’ll pull out my heart, and I’ll feed it to anyone,” it sounds and feels less sinister than perhaps it reads on paper, but that’s the magic of it.
Disintegration is ultimately a remarkably unique time capsule, one that takes you along for the ride, encouraging you to momentarily withdraw from all societal and spatial conventions for one perfect moment. “I listened to it pretty much for an entire year,” Lewis said. “I was just there, living and feeling exactly what that man wrote about.”
