‘Killing an Arab’: The Cure’s most controversial song
Goth has never been the most overtly political musical form. While the subculture is inherently political in its defiance of societal norms and its embrace of transgression, goth music has historically leaned more towards artistic refinement and introspection than direct, furious calls for revolution. Early pioneers like Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and a few acts with punk origins occasionally dabbled in political themes, but such moments were exceptions rather than the rule. The Cure similarly epitomise this focus on the personal and the atmospheric over overt political commentary.
Despite the band’s excellent new album, Songs of a Lost World, tapping into the themes of a world on the brink, most of their oeuvre encompasses abstract metiers such as nightmares, the hallucinatory psychological effects of drugs, or in a more typically gothic way, romance.
Frontman Robert Smith cemented the band as pioneers of goth with early cuts such as ‘A Forest’ and ‘Charlotte Sometimes’, haunting, atmospheric musical numbers with equally as striking lyrics and vocal performances. While the former was founded on a chilling recurring dream that Smith would have, in which he was lost in the titular woods and unable to escape, the latter was based on Penelope Farmer’s 1969 children’s novel of the same name, which the frontman dubs a “very straight lift”.
A certain degree of melodrama has run through The Cure’s work from the outset of their career to now, with this dark romantic beauty a quintessentially gothic aspect. Smith would also bolster the essence of the group by regularly delving into literature to heighten this melodramatic spirit and artistic substance, with another example being ‘The Drowning Man’ from 1981’s Faith based on Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series.
While literature has influenced Smith’s writings in a myriad of ways, perhaps the most famous track it gave way to is The Cure’s debut single, ‘Killing an Arab’. The song’s title and lyrics are based on pied-noir French Algerian philosopher Albert Camus’ 1942 novella, The Stranger, which follows the story of Meursault, an apathetic settler in French Algeria who kills an unnamed Arab man in Algiers. It might have been their introductory recording, but because of the title and the lyrics, many people have erroneously assumed that the song is political and, even more alarmingly, racist. For that reason, and the fact that in the years since its release, Arab people and the Muslim population have become demonised across the world, it is The Cure’s most controversial song.
Although there is more to it than meets the eye, with Meursault describing his feelings of numbness after killing the anonymous man, a vehicle for Camus’s influential existentialist ruminations, the way people saw it could not be further from this. After all, it was released in 1978. Thanks to the influx of immigration from the Commonwealth in the post-war years and the horrific “Rivers of Blood” speech by Conservative MP Enoch Powell in response, the far-right fascist political party, the National Front, was enjoying immense popularity among the white working class. While they were beaten at the 1977 Battle of Lewisham and would eventually be forced into obscurity after decades of resistance from left-wing campaigners and ordinary people who rejected their brutally racist ideology, in 1978, they were a spectre that haunted the lives of every person of colour in the UK.
Despite Smith saying he is a socialist and a “liberal” who has always been uncomfortable with overly politicised musicians, after the release of ‘Killing an Arab’, National Front skinheads would sometimes show up to The Cure’s shows a sing along with their misinterpreted song, only to realise it was not what the band were about. After all, they had a track called ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, a thematically tender number that undid their alpha male nonsense. On the other hand, before The Cure played at Kingston Polytechnic in 1979, students protested, instructing them not to perform it. Smith managed to get it included in the set after explaining its origins.
The song would also have more wide-reaching consequences. In 1986, the band released the Staring at the Sea compilation, which exposed American fans to their early work. As the US was locked in its fraught feud with Iran following the 1979 revolution, anti-Arab sentiment was high—despite them actually being Persians and not Arabs—as seen by the introduction of the heel character The Iron Sheik in the WWF, which tapped into this feeling for commercial gain.
As a response to the release, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee pleaded with The Cure to remove the track, claiming racist DJs were using it for political means. Smith refused, but he did make a bold move. On the album cover, the group included this message: “The song ‘Killing An Arab’ has absolutely no racist overtones whatsoever. It is a song which decries the existence of all prejudice and consequent violence. The Cure condemn its use in furthering anti-Arab feeling.”
It wasn’t over, though, and after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, anti-Arab and Muslim sentiment would reach an all-time high, with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden the world’s most wanted terrorist. Once again, this would cause people to question the song, with Smith maintaining that he wrote it when he was still in school and saying on numerous occasions he wishes he could have changed the title. You live and learn; there’s no wonder The Cure hasn’t been especially political since.
