The Cure’s Robert Smith named the song with the “best intro of all time”
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The Cure classic Robert Smith wrote feeling “utterly morose”
Welcome, Cure fans. Some of you will find yourselves a little befuddled. After all, half of Robert Smith’s back catalogue with The Cure came from ostensible feelings of utter moroseness. Just a few tracks of Pornography will usually suffice to envelop the lucky listener in a perfect mist of gloomy gothic depression. So, if Smith, master of the dark arts, felt it necessary to point out that one song, in particular, materialised when he was feeling “utterly morose”, he really must’ve been down in the dumps.
Smith formed Obelisk, the earliest incarnation of The Cure, with a tentative roster of school friends. The band’s first stable lineup consisted of Smith, bassist Mike Dempsey and Lol Tolhurst on drums. Their first album, 1979’s Three Imaginary Boys, was an exciting collection of tracks the band had been toying with that showed true potential but lacked overall consistency.
Smith regarded the album as his least favourite of The Cure’s and admitted to not being particularly happy with it even before its release. Much of the decision-making regarding the release was out of the band’s hands and, instead, the responsibility of Chris Parry, the band’s manager, producer and founder of Fiction Records.
While the album is a pleasurable listen, the collection was raw and jumbled, not least for the accidental inclusion of a raw soundcheck cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’ sung by Dempsey.
The album’s greatest moment came in the form of ‘10:15 Saturday Night’. As with the majority of the Sussex band’s back catalogue, Smith sings of loneliness and a creeping sense of worthlessness with a hefty scoop of longing. The transparent lyrics paint a monochrome image of Smith in his kitchen – or in the kitchen sink, to be more precise – as he waits for the telephone to ring; all the while, his anguished mind becomes transfixed on the tedium of a dripping tap.
‘10:15 Saturday Night’ was one of Smith’s earliest penned songs that made the cut for studio cultivation. In fact, it had been the early demo of the early track that first caught the attention of Parry. The aspiring label owner was listening to some assorted demo tapes from the mailbox while sorting through his paperwork when the “Drip Drip Drip Drip Drip Drip” drew him in. Shortly after, Parry located the band responsible, then named Easy Cure, and offered them a record deal.
Recalling the moment he wrote the formative classic, Smith once explained that the song’s narrative was true to life. Aged 16, Smith found himself sitting at the kitchen table – not in the sink – feeling “utterly morose” as he watched the tap drip drip drip drip…
‘10:15 Saturday Night’ is one of The Cure’s earliest demo tracks to have stood the test of time and is widely adored as one of the band’s greatest hits. Bristol trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack even sampled the song for their 1998 Mezzanine cut, ‘Man Next Door’, to show their appreciation. See if you can make out the drips below.
