The Cure song that frontman Robert Smith wanted to change
Compiling a greatest hits record is often a challenge, as it’s all about appeasing the more loyal fans as well as drawing in new ones. What happens, then, when there are songs that haven’t exactly aged all that well? According to Robert Smith, that’s just the nature of the game.
The Cure isn’t exactly the most contentious band when it comes to controversies. Smith has his share of haters, though even those seem less focused on anything legitimate about his craft as an artist. Those who do take umbrage with the music usually have a problem with the genre itself, or feel that Smith stood on the shoulders of giants to make a name for himself, which is true, but it’s also the same for most legends.
For the frontman, criticism is a natural part of being a musician, but it shouldn’t be a driving factor or impact you so deeply that it makes you reconsider everything you have to offer. Instead, it’s better to focus on things you might’ve improved had you got a second chance, or reasons why certain material doesn’t hold up as much as the rest and why that might be: whether cultural factors or the fact that the music just isn’t as good as people thought it once was.
A lot of these challenges arose when recording their debut, Three Imaginary Boys, and Smith has been vocal since the 1980s about everything he struggles with when it comes to that record, with most of his reasons centring the fact that he didn’t have full creative control and that it was too “superficial” and surface-level without any real emotion behind it.
The recording process also felt rushed, which sometimes meant that Smith was finishing the lyrics to some of the songs while recording them. Sure, he was “very pissed off” at the time, but it did teach him a valuable lesson in maintaining control and pushing for ideas to be explored when you have a vision you believe in. As he later reflected to Rolling Stone, “I had dreamed of making an album. And suddenly, we were making it, and my input was being disregarded. I decided from that day on we would always pay for ourselves and therefore retain total control.”
When it came to later making a greatest hits record, he had the pleasure of revising the project as well as the band’s first US album, Boys Don’t Cry. Their debut single, ‘Killing an Arab’, was written around the same time as the debut but was omitted from it, eventually making its way onto the US release instead. Despite its place in the band’s history, however, Smith felt that it was best left out of the mix because of its controversial title.
“I have to say though, if we weren’t in the current climate, I don’t think anyone would have noticed [the absence of Arab],” he recalled, “But if I had my time over, I wouldn’t not write the song, although I would change the title. If only that book had been set in Greenland.”
The song was a reference to Albert Camus’ The Stranger, where an Arab is shot and killed on a beach by the narrator, which Smith attempted to capture in song format. However, the title drew criticism for obvious reasons, and the musician even said that, had he known, he would have changed the title to ‘Standing on the Beach’. He also wrote the song when he was 16, and when he looks back now, some of his earlier stuff feels harder to stomach.
Still, omitting the song altogether doesn’t leave a particularly noticeable dent in The Cure’s legacy. The frontman might not be all that bothered about giving it attention, but from the outsider’s perspective, there are many better pieces out there that demonstrate both their impact on the rock genre and Smith’s prowess as a true visionary.
