{"id":323297,"date":"2025-08-06T19:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323297\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T19:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:33:12","slug":"the-cure-song-about-a-failed-sexual-encounter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323297\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cure song about a “failed sexual encounter”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robert<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Wed 6 August 2025 17:30, UK <\/p>\n

When Wild Mood Swings was released, The Cure<\/a> frontman Robert Smith was confused by the initial \u201cmixed reaction\u201d. But it didn\u2019t take him long to realise where its true failings came from.<\/p>\n

Any Cure fanatic will likely place Disintegration or Pornography among their ultimate favourites, some even calling attention to Songs of a Lost World, recognising all those quintessential Smith flourishes that are still there, all these years later. But there are also some lesser entries peppered throughout their discography, the ones that might have a handful of hidden gems, but which are somehow far more forgettable.<\/p>\n

Bloodflowers, for instance, was a particularly strange affair that placed Smith at the intersection between despair and motivation, the record that simultaneously made him want to quit while also reminding him of all the reasons he fell in love with music in the first place. Theoretically, it\u2019s easy to see why, considering the album title itself came from the idea of art feels like \u201ca bloodflower popped out\u201d from the heart. <\/p>\n

However, considering the nature of the band\u2019s other, more popular releases, Bloodflowers fell short, losing out to the sheer excellence pumped throughout records like Disintegration and Smith\u2019s ability to capture everything that was ever great about the band beyond any sort of preconceived expectation. In hindsight, Bloodflowers should have been his saving grace, and in some ways, it was. But it just didn\u2019t cut it when it came to living up to the standard they\u2019d already set for themselves.<\/p>\n

Before that, though, was another polarising release: Wild Mood Swings. Weirdly, Smith once called this record one of his favourites, though he also acknowledged the main reason why most people failed to share his passion. It wasn\u2019t because it failed to live up to their signature sound, or even that it somehow neglected many of the main themes expected of a Cure record. Instead, it was something he wished he\u2019d had more control over before it went out: its length.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen [it] came out, I was surprised by the, let\u2019s say, mixed reaction,\u201d Smith told Q Magazine\u00a0in 2000. \u201cThe failings of\u00a0Wild Mood Swings\u00a0is that it\u2019s two songs too long \u2013 \u2018Gone and Round And Round\u2019 shouldn\u2019t have been on there.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Smith\u2019s credit, the record isn\u2019t all bad. In fact, it\u2019s not bad at all, with some songs standing out as some of the more accomplished compositions in their entire discography, like \u2018Strange Attraction<\/a>\u2018, \u2018The 13th\u2019, and perhaps the best one of all, \u2018Jupiter Crash\u2019. Granted, it\u2019s no \u2018Lullaby\u2019 or \u2018A Forest\u2019, but \u2018Jupiter Crash\u2019 feels like a particularly special moment on the album, initially inspired by the Shoemaker-Levy comet as well as a poor sexual experience.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] about the comet crash a couple of years ago,\u201d Smith told MTV Europe in 1996. \u201cAs an analogy for a failed sexual encounter. And how you kind of build people up. Everyone expected the comet kind of hit Jupiter and Jupiter was gonna explode. Unless you have a pretty powerful telescope, you couldn\u2019t see anything at all. That sort of sense, there\u2019s a big build-up and the next day, people were saying \u2018That was rubbish.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t rubbish, it was incredible. It wasn\u2019t what you expected. That was the analogy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This dissonance defines the entire song, from Smith asking questions like, \u201cIs this how it happens? Is this how it feels? Is this how a star falls?\u201d to his wonderment at encountering a woman who arrives, changes his perspective, and leaves again, without a trace: \u201cThe incoming comet brushes Jupiter\u2019s face
And disappears away with barely a trace.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the lyrics aren\u2019t the only thing that makes the song great. There\u2019s also the strange initial build-up that feels like standing, vulnerable, in the pouring rain with no expectation \u2013 the ideal setup for something that\u2019s about to change everything. There\u2019s also an innate headiness there that\u2019s unmistakably The Cure, pulling you in in that familiar way Smith always does, even if the initial message isn\u2019t entirely clear.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Wed 6 August 2025 17:30, UK When Wild Mood Swings was released, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,22416,22417,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-323297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-robert-smith","11":"tag-the-cure","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114983495503912715","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}