The poem that inspired ‘Pornography’ by The Cure
Extending their influence across jangle-pop, post-punk, and gothic subcultures, The Cure remain one of the most important bands in British history. Led by the eyeliner-laden, unruly-haired Robert Smith, the Sussex-born band found their distinctive sound through the frontman’s elongated singing style, guitar effects, and lyricism infused with a literary quality.
From the chronological chorus to the iconic ‘Friday I’m In Love’ to the anxious dream world of ‘A Forest’, their songs always carved out a distinctive atmosphere and story, usually marked by gothic or sensual qualities. Often, this literary feeling came directly from the source, as Smith found inspiration for songwriting through the books and writings of his favourite authors.
“Singing in The Cure wasn’t enough,” the frontman once stated during a conversation with Rock and Folk. Writing both novels and songs with his favourite authors in mind, comparison both scared and motivated Smith. “I was reassuring telling myself they didn’t write songs, but it’s quite frustrating to understand I would never reach their level,” he noted.
After penning their controversial debut single ‘Killing An Arab’ after Albert Camus’s The Stranger and borrowing from Mervyn Peake for ‘The Drowning Man’, The Cure embarked upon the task of turning poetry and psychoanalysis into Pornography. The band’s crudely titled fourth studio record saw The Cure at its most gothic and literary, borrowing, in particular, from John Milton’s 1667 epic Paradise Lost.
Charting the story of Adam and Eve, Smith dubbed Milton’s work “pure poetry, fabulous, a must for an English grammar school pupil and very influencing on romantics writers.” More than the romantics, though, the epic poem inspired Catholic-turned-atheist Smith in the writing of Pornography.
“It strongly influenced Pornography,” he shared, “The idea of being a victim was still there, but it was becoming unbearable. I had decided to struggle in front of a world I hated. It was Devil against God (smiling). The fight was lost in advance, but I was acting, I was leaving melancholy: it was the final part of the fall, an ahead run away, a critical threshold.”
The influence of Milton’s depiction of the fall of man can be found throughout the record – from the continual references to falling to the hanging garden. More than direct messages to the content, though, there is always a general poetic quality to the album’s writing. Smith’s repeated imagery and dark atmospheres are infused with a gothic literary quality, each song containing a story. Sitting somewhere between spiritual and sensual, dark and brooding, Pornography is a demonstration of the band’s poetic prowess.
Revisit the record below.
