The album The Cure frontman Robert Smith called “painful” to release
It’s nearly impossible to find any band through history with a clean streak when it comes to questionable decisions, The Cure included.
In fact, it’s almost expected, especially if it’s a band that’s been around as long as The Cure has. Encountering one or two distasteful slip-ups is a given for most artists, but for Robert Smith, who emerged at the tail-end of one of the most notorious eras for rock music, accidentally falling victim to the pesky development of things ageing badly was almost inevitable.
Most people, when they think of The Cure, rightfully think of all the ways they changed the landscape for gothic new wave, with Smith’s visions of the ghostly haunt that taints childlike wonder giving rock something it hadn’t had before, or something that wasn’t done as masterfully: nuance. In Smith’s music, the ambiguity of all life’s emotions comes to the fore, often through a swirling abyss of gorgeous arrangements that leave you feeling more seen than ever.
Most of the time, these experiences come from Smith’s own, from his memories and nightmares as a child, through to his luck and perils in romance and longstanding relationships. Most of his words are ones we can all relate to, especially when it comes to being distrustful of your own reality and anxieties, or the emotions we attach to memories that might be seen through a distorted lens.
Sometimes, however, it’s Smith’s reimaginations of existing texts that pull us in, or his reinvention of existing concepts that make the music withstand the test of time. Sometimes, this is as visual or visceral as the concept of pain and the passage of time, a common theme through most of their material. Other times, it’s through the delicate reading of books or films that Smith has felt a connection to. This was the case with Albert Camus’ The Stranger, the inspiration behind ‘Killing An Arab’, which, as you’ve probably guessed, isn’t exactly the least provocative title Smith could have come up with at the time.
Although it’s nowhere near as controversial as it sounds, ‘Killing An Arab’ landed Smith in hot water. This became especially clear when it came to their compilation, Standing on a Beach, when including the song became a point of contention. Especially since it had been claimed by racist groups who had unjustly misinterpreted its original meaning and weaponised it for their own harmful messages. As a result, Smith and their US label tried to get radio stations to stop playing it.
“It was a compromise, really, but one that was forced on us,” Smith later explained. “There were other ways out of it, but they all would have been more painful for us. We could have insisted that everything stay as it was, but I had to make a gesture that people would understand.”
He went on, “I just despaired, really, that I had to step in and explain, and I got very annoyed at Elektra’s initial suggestion that they delete the song but keep selling the album, which we refused to do. I said that they could delete the album if they wanted to, but they couldn’t take the song off.”
Smith wrote the song when he was 16, with no intentions whatsoever of it ever becoming as misconstrued as it did. Luckily, however, it’s not something that anybody ever really clings onto when it comes to the band’s legacy. Which also proves that, although The Cure’s streak is anything but perfect, the nature of Smith’s vision remains stronger than ever, with any mishaps – even the ones that weren’t his fault – falling away and into the sidelines, where they belong.
