The Cure song about Robert Smith’s greatest fears
As the original wave of punk crashed and burned, the next generation of musicians was looking to get more introspective. Although the waves of post-punk were still just as vital to the story of punk as The Clash and Sex Pistols, the tone was decidedly darker, with acts like Joy Division opening listener’s minds to more intense subjects in their music. Though The Cure may have been one of the few post-punk acts to fully embrace the darkness, ‘Lullaby’ was a look into the depths of Robert Smith’s mind.
Before he became the unofficial leader of the goth-rock movement, Smith was known for making music in the vein of new-wave punk acts. Once the band traded in the jagged guitars of ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ for the melancholy groove of ‘A Forest’ on their album Seventeen Seconds, they found their true voice in bringing the macabre sounds of rock and roll to the masses.
For the rest of the 1980s, the band would continue working on creating dense atmospheres on every one of their records, making songs that were as off-putting as they were melodic on albums like Pornography and The Head on the Door. As the band started to make videos, something strange started to happen…they actually started to sound like a pop band.
Whether it was by design or not, the stirring sounds of Smith’s voice, along with his fantastic gift for melody, sent songs like ‘Just Like Heaven’ to the top of the charts, all while still being known as the same band that talked about the pain in their heart. Although they still had their black eyeliner look down to a science, their ability to make emotionally resonant music struck a nerve with any teenager who fell in love for the first time.
By the time Disintegration arrived in 1989, the band had distilled their sound into crystalline brilliance, with moody tracks like ‘Fascination Street’ sharing equal time with ballads like ‘Love Song’. Smith hadn’t left the sinister side of his sound behind, and ‘Lullaby’ was the first time he delved into something genuinely macabre.
Inspired by a dream Smith had as a child, he sings about a Spider-Man arriving in his bedroom to eat him in the middle of the night. This isn’t the same friendly neighbourhood wallcrawler of Marvel fame, either, singing like a man possessed as he asks him not to struggle as Smith lay in his bed paralysed with fear.
Even though The Cure has had far more foreboding backing tracks in their back catalogue, the sound of the record is far more sinister because of how innocent it is. Using primitive approaches to instrumentation, the song practically sounds like it’s being played with children’s toys, which makes the whole song feel like you’re trapped in that room alongside Smith, possibly the next victim, as the Spider-Man absent-mindedly licks his chops.
While The Cure was never put in the same conversation as horror-themed hard rock bands, ‘Lullaby’ is the kind of song that fills listeners to the bone from the minute that it starts playing. Many songs have been able to create dark works of art by talking about demons, but Smith reminded us that there’s one dark place that you can never truly escape: your mind.
