{"id":485783,"date":"2025-10-09T13:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T13:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/485783\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T13:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T13:50:14","slug":"the-one-song-robert-smith-wishes-he-wrote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/485783\/","title":{"rendered":"The one song Robert Smith wishes he wrote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Robert-Smith-The-Cure-Singer-Musician-Songwriter-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Robert Smith - The Cure - Singer - Musician - Songwriter\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 50%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n<p> Thu 9 October 2025 12:29, UK <\/p>\n<p>The songwriting credentials of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/the-cure\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">The Cure<\/a> frontman Robert Smith speak for themselves, and he has a delicate way of combining heartfelt lyrics with fuzzy distortion that has made his band a staple of every true music lover\u2019s record collection.<\/p>\n<p>Together, The Cure has successfully transcended genre and style for decades, a skill which has seen their pop goth amalgamation spark alternative music with their illuminating sounds. Perhaps the ultimate compliment is that The Cure made music that felt incredibly personal to whoever was listening to it. <\/p>\n<p>Fandom is not a new idea, and Smith and his band are a testament to that. Their unique sound stood out from the rest of the 1980s crowd and gave a section of society hope that they weren\u2019t necessarily in the wrong for being unable to connect with the decade\u2019s mainstream ventures. Smith and the group made it OK to be weird in a new way, and with it, they endeared themselves to millions who had previously felt alone. <\/p>\n<p>While The Cure is often incorrectly pigeonholed into one specific area, it is often by those quick to judge the band on appearance alone. \u201cOne of the reasons people like the band is because they\u2019re never quite sure what\u2019s gonna happen next,\u201d Smith once said. \u201cIf we were predictable, we wouldn\u2019t have really lasted this long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/robert-smith-least-favourite-album-by-the-cure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Smith<\/a>\u00a0revealed the one song he wishes he wrote to\u00a0Rolling Stone\u00a0in 2004, he didn\u2019t disappoint with his answer, proving that he\u2019s a man that you can\u2019t pin down. Smith is never afraid to make a joke at an interviewer\u2019s expense, and quickly replied: \u201c\u2018Happy Birthday to You\u2019 just so that people all around the world every second of the day were singing my song\u201d. One would imagine he said it in jest before revealing his honest answer, adding, \u201cEither that or Bowie\u2019s \u2018Life on Mars\u2019?\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2025\/04\/David-Bowie-1976-Musician-Far-Out-Magazine.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/David-Bowie-1976-Musician-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"David Bowie - 1976 - Musician\" class=\"wp-image-679215\" \/><\/a>David Bowie in his Thin White Duke era. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n<p>Davie Bowie was an artist who, like Smith, shapeshifted his way through a career of unrelenting experimentation, donning a cloak of unpredictability at all times. The Cure frontman has spoken about his adoration for the Bromley boy a number of times in recent years, highlighting his discovery of Bowie as a vital moment in his voyage of musical exploration.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Life on Mars\u2019 may well be one of his most obvious songs to use as an example of that exploration. Lyrically, it rings out like a Beat poet sniffing glue, never really standing still on staying on a particular message. Instead, it provides fragments of a world disenchanted with the earth beneath their feet. Musically, too, it is weird and wonderful, moving into pop then orchestral motifs at ease. It spoke to Smith. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI listened to music before Bowie, obviously,\u201d Smith once explained. \u201cI have an older brother and he played me Hendrix, Cream and Captain Beefheart\u2026 all that type of stuff from the \u201960s, but David Bowie was probably the first artist that I felt was mine. He was singing to me.\u201d This parallel is hard to ignore. Like Smith did some time later, Bowie provided a generation of music lovers with a new idol to adore, one that didn\u2019t fit the conventional pop paradigm of the time. Bowie was completely unique, and it rubbed off on Smith. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe [Bowie] was the first album I ever bought,\u201d Smith explained of Bowie\u2019s dynamic explosion as the alien rock star, \u201cZiggy Stardust was the first vinyl album I ever bought. I always loved how he did things as much as what he did. I love that idea of being an outsider and creating characters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added, \u201cI look back at some the things we\u2019ve [The Cure] done and I can see echoes of some of Bowie\u2019s stuff in it. I got my dream come true when he invited me to sing with him at his birthday in New York. That was a fantastic night, unreal actually for something like that to happen\u201d. Of course, that one night in New York\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/10-best-covers-of-bruce-springsteen-bowie-cash-vedder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"From David Bowie to Johnny Cash: The 10 best covers of Bruce Springsteen\">Madison Square Garden<\/a>, performing tracks \u2018The Last Thing You Should Do\u2019 and \u2018Quicksand\u2019 is an evening that has lived long in his memory.<\/p>\n<p>When Smith was growing up in Crawley and stumbled upon Bowie, something clicked for him that day, but never in his wildest dreams did he imagine one day they\u2019d be sharing a stage. However, he savoured every second they spent on stage and lost himself in the moment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Thu 9 October 2025 12:29, UK The songwriting credentials of The Cure frontman&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[4157,77,269,22416,22417,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-485783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-david-bowie","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-robert-smith","12":"tag-the-cure","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115344534852648532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485783","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=485783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}